The presence of comedo carcinoma in the intraductal component is an important pathologic feature for predicting local recurrence after breast conserving treatment. Furthermore, the c-erbB-2 gene is frequently overexpressed in comedo carcinoma and it correlates well with gene amplification. This study revealed that 77.0% of the c-erbB-2 amplification positive tumors had intraductal lesions of the comedo type; while only 6.7% of the amplification negative tumors had comedo carcinoma (X(2)=106.6, p<0.0001). Accordingly, when c-erbB-2 amplification is detected in the invasive tumor, intraductal lesions which may co-exist in the tumor are likely to be comedo carcinoma. To predict the presence of comedo type intraductal carcinoma, c-erbB-2 gene amplification was analysed by means of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from small samples of fine-needle aspiration biopsies. Breast tumors from ten patients were analysed and one had a 3.4-fold amplification of c-erbB-2 gene. The pathological appearance of this case was pure ductal carcinoma in situ with comedo carcinoma. The preoperative detection of c-erbB-2 gene amplification by PCR will be a useful means of selecting patients at high risk for local recurrence after breast conserving treatment.

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