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Fourty-one patients underwent breast reconstruction after mastectomy for cancer and reduction plasty of the second breast, over a 36-month period. These plasties were performed only for reasons of asymmetry, in the absence of any positive preoperative finding. Histologic examination using semiserial sectioning of the whole excised sample detected a high frequency of unsuspected cancer 14/41 (34%). There was a strong predominance of in situ carcinomas 11/41 (27%) over invasive carcinomas 3/41 (7%). These results were compared with those of other bilateral cancer series. When such cancers were detected by random biopsies or mastectomies, the rate of in situ carcinomas was much greater than in cancers detected only by physical and mammographic examination.

From 1980 to 1984, we observed 144 undifferentiated cancers, of which 116 (0.9% of all cancers treated during this period) were treated in our center. Immunohistochemical study classified 130 tumors (90%), which comprised 82 non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (57%), 32 carcinomas (22%), 7 melanomas (5%), 7 sarcomas (5%) and 2 others (1%). Sixty-nine patients, with the diagnostic problem of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma versus carcinoma, which was solved by immunohistology, were followed up for 44 ± 20 months. Lymphomas (57 cases) had a better clinical course than carcinomas (11 cases), and a clinical course similar to high-grade lymphomas identified by conventional histology. For 66 patients with the same problem, the treatment was started before the immunohistochemical diagnosis. This treatment was inappropriate in the light of the correct diagnosis in 16 of 66 cases (24% of all cases).