The most common form of cancer that affects round one in nine American women is the breast cancer. Around 180,000 women in America have the tendency to develop breast cancer and around 45000 deaths occur due to breast cancer every year. But the adenoid cystic carcinoma of the breast (AdCC) is a form of cancer that is very rare and it constitutes around 0.8 -1 percent of the entire number of cases that are diagnosed each year in United States. Compred to other major types of breast cancers AdCC is very different.
There is very little knowledge about AdCC to the doctor because not much research is done on this disease. This variety of cancer of breasts is known by different types of names such as adenocystic basaloid carcinoma, basaloma, adenomyoepithelioma, cylindroid adenocarcinoma, malignant cylindroma, pseudoadenomatous basal cell carcinoma of the breast, and still many more names. The age during the diagnosis of breast cancer can range from being very young to old. Breast cancer is a type of cancer that can affect both men and women. There have been some cases of children also being affected. The size of the tumor can vary from 1 cm to as big as 15 cm.
Even though only 200 cases of breast cancer have been recorded in the literature of medicine, this does not imply that only 200 cases have taken place. In fact this disease may be much more common than imagined. There is also a tendency of wrong diagnoses of this disease or also be confused with other types of breast cancer. The tumors of AdCC generally grow slowly as well as be circumscribed and a mass that is palpable that can be present large amount of months or even years before its correct diagnosis.
People suffering from this form of breast cancer are often told that everything is fine with them or there is just a minor fibrocystic disease and no need to panic about. There have been many cases where the patients have been told that their tumor is benign despite of repeated mammograms. Since this type of breast cancer is not very invasive it is very difficult to do the biopsy correctly. This type of breast cancer can very easily avoid the needle puncture during biopsy and thus it becomes difficult to get a sample of a tissue with the tumor. The diagnosis is possible only if the pathologist is aware of adenoid cystic carcinoma as well knows what to look for. Otherwise it can be confused with much common forms of breast cancer.