Mammary Paget’s Disease in China: a National-wide Multicenter Retrospective Study

Paget’s disease (PD) of the nipple is a rare condition in breast cancer. It was first described by Sir James Paget in 1874 (Paget, 1874), which found certain chronic affections of the skin of the nipple and areola, and then succeeded by breast cancer. PD of the breast always represented an early appearance of eczema affecting the nipple and the areola, so the diagnosis and treatment were always delayed (Ashikri et al., 1970; Fu et al., 2001). In the Western countries, PD is more common in older post-menopausal female. There are two patterns of PD in physical examination (Sakorafas et al., 2001): patients present with or without a palpable mass in the breast. There are three pathologic patterns of PD: PD with underlying invasive cancer, PD with underlying