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REVIEW article

Front. Oncol.

Sec. Breast Cancer

Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1631670

Invasive Lobular Carcinoma of the Breast: Metastatic Patterns and Treatment Modalities—A Review

Provisionally accepted
  • The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Compared with invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) exhibits distinct histologic, molecular, and clinical characteristics, including unique metastatic patterns. This review focuses on three major aspects: (1) an analysis of metastatic behavior across different ILC histologic subtypes, with a preliminary exploration of potential correlations with molecular features; (2) a synthesis of current treatment strategies, highlighting challenges such as endocrine resistance, limited tailored protocols, and emerging immunotherapeutic opportunities; and (3) a review of clinical trials from 2022 to 2024 to identify evolving strategies and future directions for individualized therapy. By integrating pathology, molecular profiling, and clinical data, this review emphasizes ILC’s distinctive metastatic behavior and unmet clinical needs, providing a conceptual framework to guide future translational research and therapeutic development.

Keywords: Invasive lobular carcinoma, Metastatic pattern, prognosis, Treatment mode, Endocrine resistance

Received: 20 May 2025; Accepted: 12 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Yu, Yan, Yang and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Jin Yang, yangjin@xjtu.edu.cn
Jiao Yang, yangjiaoweimeng@126.com

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