Breast

Invasive breast carcinoma of no special type and variants

Osteoclastic giant cells



Last author update: 1 October 2012
Last staff update: 16 December 2021

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PubMed Search: Carcinoma with osteoclastic giant cells

Monika Roychowdhury, M.D.
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Cite this page: Roychowdhury M. Osteoclastic giant cells. PathologyOutlines.com website. https://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/breastmalignantductalNOSosteoclastic.html. Accessed September 29th, 2023.
Definition / general
  • Part of WHO classification
  • Osteoclastic giant cells are present in stroma
  • Presence of giant cells does not alter prognosis
Case reports
Gross description
  • Often brown due to vascular stroma with hemosiderin
Microscopic (histologic) description
  • Giant cells are associated with vascular stroma with extravasated red blood cells and hemosiderin, also chronic inflammatory cells and fibroblasts
  • Giant cells have variable size and variable numbers of nuclei
  • Similar histologic features in nodal metastases and recurrences (Arch Pathol Lab Med 1986;110:636)
  • Carcinoma component may be any type
Microscopic (histologic) images

Images hosted on other servers:

Invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast with osteoclast-like giant cells

Whole mount


Tubular growth, vascular stroma and hemorrhage

Giant cells in stroma and intraductal spaces

Various images



Differentiated well cribriform carcinoma

Osteoclast like giant cells in close contact to tumor cells

Cytology description
Positive stains
Negative stains
Electron microscopy description
  • Osteoclasts are histiocytes
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