ABSTRACT
Granulomatous mastitis is a chronic inflammatory condition of the breast that is rarely described in literature. It mimics breast abscess on clinical presentation giving dilemma to the surgeon. The etiology can be infectious, autoimmune or idiopathic. The various modalities of treatment for idiopathic granulomatous mastitis includes drainage of abscess, antibiotics and corticosteroid therapy. This is a case series of ten cases of diagnosed with granulomatous mastitis treated in the period of 2 years from 2018 and 2019 in Department of General Surgery, MGM Hospital Navi Mumbai. The data of all the patients were collected from records. They were following at regular intervals in the outpatient department to assess recurrence. The mean age of the patients was 41 years (range 26–47 years). Six patients gave history of breast-feeding in the last 5 years, one was lactating at the time of presentation. One of the patients was treated empirically for Tuberculous mastitis for the opposite breast. Others had no history suggestive of tuberculosis or other connective tissue diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis or sarcoidosis USG breast was performed in all cases. Hypoechoic abscess was seen in 5 cases. The time taken for complete resolution of the disease was ranging from 2 weeks to 2 months. All patients had an uneventful recovery and no recurrences reported till now. GM is a rare benign breast disease that is difficult to distinguish from other inflammatory breast diseases or cancer. The diagnosis of GM must be based on a multidisciplinary approach. Surgical management followed by antibiotics was found to be sufficient to treat the condition in our patients. Corticosteroids need not be administered in all cases of this benign breast disease.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Idiopathic granulomatous mastitis (IGM) is a rare chronic inflammatory disease of unknown etiology. The diagnosis of IGM requires that other granulomatous lesions in the breast be excluded. Tuberculous mastitis (TM) is also an uncommon disease that is often difficult to differentiate from IGM. The purpose of this study is to develop a new algorithm for the differential diagnosis and treatment of IGM and TM. METHODS: Medical records of 68 patients (58 with IGM and 10 with TM) between July 1999 and February 2009 were retrospectively reviewed. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 33.5 (IGM) and 40 (TM) years (p=0.018). The median follow-up was 84 months. Of the total 10 patients with TM, 5 patients had a history of pulmonary tuberculosis. The most common symptoms of the diseases were breast lump and pain. However, axillary lymphadenopathy was more seen in TM (50%) compared to IGM (20.6%) (p=0.048). TM showed more cancer-mimicking findings on radiologic study (p=0.028). In IGM, 48 patients (82.7%) underwent surgical wide excision and 21 patients (36.2%) were managed with corticosteroid therapy and antibiotics. All of the TM patients received anti-tuberculosis medications and 9 patients (90%) underwent wide excision. The mean treatment duration was 2.8 months in IGM and 8.4 months in TM. Recurrence developed in 5 patients (8.6%) in IGM and 1 patient (10%) in TM. CONCLUSION: This study shows different characteristics between IGM and TM. The IGM patients were younger and had more mastalgia symptoms than the TM patients. Axillary lymphadenopathy was seen more often in TM patients. Half of the TM patients had pulmonary tuberculosis or tuberculosis lymphadenitis. Surgical wide excision might be both therapeutic and useful for providing an exact diagnosis.