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Collagenous spherulosis, or simple spherulosis, is a benign finding in
breast The breasts are two prominences located on the upper ventral region of the torso among humans and other primates. Both sexes develop breasts from the same embryology, embryological tissues. The relative size and development of the breasts is ...
pathology Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...
. It is almost always an incidental finding, though it is occasionally associated with
calcification Calcification is the accumulation of calcium salts in a body tissue. It normally occurs in the formation of bone, but calcium can be deposited abnormally in soft tissue,Miller, J. D. Cardiovascular calcification: Orbicular origins. ''Nature M ...
s, which may lead to a
biopsy A biopsy is a medical test commonly performed by a surgeon, interventional radiologist, an interventional radiologist, or an interventional cardiology, interventional cardiologist. The process involves the extraction of sampling (medicine), sample ...
.


Significance

It is important to correctly identify, as it can be confused with atypical ductal hyperplasia, cribriform
ductal carcinoma in situ Ductal carcinoma ''in situ'' (DCIS), also known as intraductal carcinoma, is a pre-cancerous or non-invasive cancerous lesion of the breast. DCIS is classified as Breast cancer classification#Stage, Stage 0. It rarely produces symptoms or a ...
(DCIS), and
adenoid cystic carcinoma Adenoid cystic carcinoma is a rare type of cancer that can exist in many different body sites. This tumor most often occurs in the salivary glands, but it can also be found in many anatomic sites, including the breast, lacrimal gland, human lung, ...
.


Histomorphologic features

Collagenous spherulosis is characterized by a tubular/cribriform architecture with intratubular eosinophilic material that classically is arranged like the spokes of a wheel ("radial spikes"). There is usually no mitotic activity, and two cells populations (
epithelial Epithelium or epithelial tissue is a thin, continuous, protective layer of cells with little extracellular matrix. An example is the epidermis, the outermost layer of the skin. Epithelial ( mesothelial) tissues line the outer surfaces of man ...
& myoepithelial) are present, like in benign breast glands. The lesions are typically small (less than 50 spherules per lesion, less than 100 micrometers in size) and may be multifocal. Image: Collagenous spherulosis - intermed mag.jpg , Intermed. mag. Image: Collagenous spherulosis - high mag.jpg , High mag.


See also

* Adenomyoepithelioma *
Misdiagnosis A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care (" iatrogenesis"), whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis or treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior, ...


References


External links


Histomorphologic criteria for collagenous spherulosis (Stanford School of Medicine)
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220520100331/https://surgpathcriteria.stanford.edu/breast/collspher/ , date=2022-05-20 Breast neoplasia