Primary breast atypical lipomatous tumor/well-differentiated liposarcoma and dedifferentiated liposarcoma

Abstract

Atypical lipomatous tumor/well-differentiated liposarcoma (ALT/WDL) and its higher-grade counterpart, dedifferentiated liposarcoma (DDL), are extraordinarily rare tumors in the breast. The main differential diagnostic consideration of primary breast ALT/WDL is malignant phyllodes tumor with liposarcomatous differentiation, and the main differential diagnostic consideration of DDL in the breast is metaplastic breast carcinoma, particularly the spindle cell type, with heterologous sarcomatous differentiation. These differential diagnoses may be particularly challenging when evaluating limited core needle biopsy sampling. MDM2 and/or CDK4 protein overexpression and gene amplification are beneficial ancillary studies that can help establish the diagnosis of primary breast ALT/WDL and DDL, and effectively rule out the diagnoses of malignant phyllodes tumor and metaplastic breast carcinoma.