Lobular Neoplasia

This is an area of great interest and a very valuable part of the Sloane Project. The clinical significance and natural history of lobular neoplasia is far from being fully understood and most published series have relatively small numbers of cases. It is anticipated that the Sloane Project will accrue between 100 and 150 cases in this group and the follow up information will be extremely helpful in guiding future clinical management.

• A continuum from what was formerly known as atypical lobular hyperplasia (ALH) through to lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS)



• Concept of a neoplastic continuum supported by molecular analyses



• Traditionally ALH was regarded as a lobular proliferation which fell short of filling completely the lobular unit thus leaving a central space



• Because of the difficulty of separating reliably ALH & LCIS and a common clinical management approach the whole spectrum is now grouped as 'lobular neoplasia'



• Often picked up as calcs on screening - particularly ALH



• E cadherin staining is negative (in contrast to lobular cancerisation by DCIS)

For the purposes of breaking this page up into accessible sections I have added links as follows:

The following sequence of images begins with some views of a normal terminal duct lobular unit (TDLU) to help put the lobular neoplasia images in context. High power views are comparable and have been taken with the same microscope and adjusted for the web identically.

Normal TDLU

Normal TDLU