Synchronous primary papillary breast cancer, medullary thyroid carcinoma and neuroendocrine tumor in postmenopausal woman

Multiple endocrine neoplasia are syndromes involving two or more endocrine tissues, often correlated to RET proto-oncogene mutations. We herein present the first reported case of a 57-years-old woman with three synchronous primary cancers of breast (papillary), thyroid (medullary) and pancreas (neuroendocrine), the latter with liver metastasis. The patient first underwent surgery for papillary breast cancer with axillary lymph nodes metastases. A staging whole body computerized tomography (CT) showed a right lateral cervical lymph node, pancreatic inhomogeneity, peri-pancreatic nodes and a single liver metastasis. The poor response to an antracycline and taxane-based chemotherapy, the good performance status of patient, and associated symptoms, suggested a different origin for pancreatic and hepatic lesions. A careful re-evaluation of clinical history, an octreotide-labeled scan and an immunohistochemical analysis, on both hepatic and pancreatic tissues and on laterocervical lymph node, determined the diagnosis of synchronous papillary breast cancer, pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET) with liver metastasis and an occult medullary thyroid carcinoma in a patient who had proto-oncogene RET wild type.