Current surgical approach to Paget's disease.
BACKGROUND
Paget's disease constitutes between 1% and 3% of all breast malignancies, which makes defining standard surgical therapy difficult. We sought to identify preoperative factors that would select patients for successful breast conservation.


METHODS
Fifty-one patients with Paget's disease underwent surgical therapy between October 1998 and January 2010. Clinical presentation of Paget's disease, preoperative imaging, pathologic tumor characteristics, as well as surgical, radiation, and adjuvant therapies were reviewed.


RESULTS
Thirty-seven percent underwent breast conservation whereas 63% underwent mastectomy. Twelve patients presented with a palpable mass, and all were treated with mastectomy. Twenty-two patients underwent a mammogram, identifying extensive abnormality requiring mastectomy. Magnetic resonance imaging added to surgical planning in 52% of patients who participated in the study. None of our patients had a local/regional recurrence at 29 months of follow-up evaluation.


CONCLUSIONS
Paget's disease of the breast can be treated with breast conservation in a properly selected subset of patients. Successful breast conservation was achieved in patients without a palpable finding, a benign mammogram, and a normal magnetic resonance imaging scan.
Department of Surgical Oncology, Brigham and Women's Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis St., Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Laura S
LS
Dominici
Susan
S
Lester
Guo-Shiou
GS
Liao
Life
L
Guo
Michelle
M
Specht
Barbara L
BL
Smith
Mehra
M
Golshan
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D001706:Biopsy; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery* / Q000628:therapy; D017024:Chemotherapy, Adjuvant; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography; D008404:Massachusetts; D015411:Mastectomy, Modified Radical; D015412:Mastectomy, Segmental; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009558:Nipples / Q000473:pathology*; D010144:Paget's Disease, Mammary / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery* / Q000628:therapy; D018714:Radiotherapy, Adjuvant; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018401:Sample Size; D021701:Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy; D013997:Time Factors