Breast cancer is a complex disease that includes entities with different characteristics, behaviors, and responses to treatment. Breast cancers are categorized into subgroups based on histological type and grade, and these subgroups affect clinical presentation and oncological outcomes. The subgroup of “special types” encompasses all those breast cancers with insufficient features to belong to the subgroup “invasive ductal carcinoma not otherwise specified”. These cancers account for around 25% of all cases, some of them having a relatively good prognosis despite high histological grade. The purpose of this paper is to review and illustrate the radiological appearance of each special type, highlighting insights and pitfalls to guide breast radiologists in their routine work.

Haemangiomas have been described in many anatomic locations, but occur quite rarely in the breast; although unfrequent, they are the most common benign vascular tumors of the breast. They are comprised in the cathegory of mesenchymal lesions, a spectrum of lesions that arise in the stroma of the breast as defined by WHO.