Adenoid cystic carcinoma is a rare type of invasive breast carcinoma t
hat has a good prognosis, We studied a series of four cases of adenoid
cystic carcinoma in which we correlated the clinical and pathological
features, The pathological features examined included light microscop
y; electron microscopy; immunohistochemistry using antibodies to kerat
in, vimentin, S100 protein, actin, estrogen and progesterone receptors
, the proliferation marker MiB-1, and p53 suppressor protein; image cy
tometric analysis for measurement of DNA ploidy; and molecular analysi
s using polymerase chain reaction single strand conformation polymorph
ism to assess point mutation of the p53 gene, All of the cases had a l
ow nuclear grade, were negative for estrogen and progesterone receptor
s, and were DNA diploid, Three of the cases showed no evidence of meta
stases and had small primary tumors with low proliferative activity an
d absence of p53 protein expression, In contrast, one of the cases sho
wed axillary lymph node metastases and in this case the primary tumor
was large with a higher proliferative activity and expression of p53 p
rotein, suggesting that these factors might play a role in the biologi
cal behavior of adenoid cystic carcinoma.