Breast Cancer Type

A healthcare provider will look at breast tissue using a microscope to determine which breast cancer type a woman has. The main breast cancer type will be either invasive or non-invasive. Within those two categories, a woman may have a secondary breast cancer type, such as infiltrating ductal carcinoma, Paget's disease of the nipple, and intraductal carcinoma.

 

Breast Cancer Type: An Introduction

A doctor performs a biopsy to look at breast tissue under a microscope. This allows the doctor look at the breast tissue cells for breast cancer and, if found, the type of breast cancer present.
 
Types of breast cancer can be invasive (moves into the surrounding tissue) or non-invasive (stays in the ducts or lobes). Healthcare providers will often use infiltrating to mean the same thing as invasive. Some breast cancer types can also be named based on where the cancer starts. For example, ductal carcinoma is cancer that begins in the lining of the milk ducts while another type, lobular carcinoma, begins in the lobules where breast milk is produced.
 

Infiltrating Breast Cancer Types

Infiltrating breast cancers make up 70 to 80 percent of all breast cancer cases. The most common type of infiltrating breast cancer is infiltrating ductal carcinoma (also known as invasive ductal carcinoma). This type of breast cancer is found in approximately 60 percent of breast cancer cases. The second most common breast cancer type is infiltrating lobular carcinoma (also known as invasive lobular carcinoma), found in approximately 6 percent of breast cancer cases.
 
Other, less common, infiltrating types of breast cancer include:
 
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Written by/reviewed by: Arthur Schoenstadt, MD
Last reviewed by: Arthur Schoenstadt, MD