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Introduction: Medullary breast carcinoma (MBC) is a unique histological subtype of breast cancer. The present study aimed to evaluate the classic and non-classic characteristics of MBC and its differences with IDC. The present review study incorporates 22 years of practical experience from a breast diseases research center-based series of cases. Retrospectively, the medical records of 3,246 patients were reviewed in the Breast Disease Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Science, Shiraz, Iran, from December 1993 to December 2015. The tumor size, lymph node metastasis, pathologic stage, nuclear and histological grade, hormonal receptor status, recurrence, disease-free, and overall survival were reviewed. Differences between medullary breast carcinoma and invasive ductal carcinoma were analyzed statistically using the chi-square, Fischer, independent-sample t test, and Kaplan-Meier analysis (SPSS version 19.0). P values <0.05 were considered statistically significant. Conclusions: A total of 179 patients were identified with MBC and 3,067 patients were identified with IDC. The MBC group had a significant association with a higher histological grade (P < 0.001) as well as negative estrogen receptor (P < 0.001), progesterone receptor (P < 0.001), and HER-2 (P = 0.004) status. The MBC patients predominantly had triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) according to the molecular subtype (P < 0.001). In local invasion, MBC was less invasive compared to IDC (P < 0.001). The disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) differed significantly between the MBC and IDC groups (5-year DFS: 94.2% vs. 86.3%, P = 0.008; 5-year OS: 98.1% vs. 92.8%, P = 0.004). Despite the poor and aggressive pathological features of MBC, its clinical outcome was more favorable compared to IDC. Our findings can be useful in improvement of diagnosis and treatment of less known breast cancer subtypes, such as MBC.

Background and Aim: The prevalence of cancer in women under 50 years of age has been increased in recent years. Cancer treatment methods can lead to infertility in women with cancer. Fertility and childbearing, as the most important conflicts in the life of women with breast cancer, significantly affect their quality of life. Materials and Methods: This research is a qualitative study of content analysis type. Purposeful sampling and semi-structured individual interviews were performed for data collection. The participants were women with breast cancer referred to the Breast Disease Research Center of Shahid Motahari Clinic in Shiraz. The data were saturated after 15 interviews. To assess the validity and reliability, we used the four criteria provided by Lincoln and Guba. The conventional qualitative data analysis and MAXQDA10 software were used to analyze the qualitative data. Results: Explaining the conflicts which women with breast cancer are faced has led to the extraction of four main categories: (1) paradox of decision-making to childbearing, (2) fear, (3) sinister emotions, and (4) challenges. The results showed that the paradox of decision-making on childbearing is the most important challenge with which the patients with breast cancer are faced, causing a state of fear, anxiety, and the emergence of sinister emotions in them. Conclusion: It seems that paying more attention to preserving reproductive capacity before starting the treatment plays an important role in solving the biggest conflict in the life of breast cancer patients.