Paget's disease of the nipple treated successfully with cryosurgery: a series of cases report.

INTRODUCTION: Paget's disease of the nipple is a rare form of breast malignancy. Underlying breast cancer, either in situ or invasive accompanies lesions of the nipple in most of the cases. The connection between both entities and their exact origin remains unclear. Nevertheless, underlying ductal breast cancer is often confined to the central, subareolar part of the breast. Radical mastectomy, although successful, seems to be too mutilating treatment in the era of breast sparing surgery. Studies describing breast conserving surgery performed without adjuvant treatment are rare and the patients not numerous. Due to low incidence of the disease, there are no randomised trials conducted which could show the optimal method of treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed cryosurgery of the affected nipple-areola complex (NAC) in treatment of six patients with Paget's disease of the nipple who presented general contraindications or lack of consent for surgery. RESULTS: With a follow up ranging from 60 to 121 months (average 94) we obtained very good results in terms of disease specific survival: there were two cases of recurrent disease, confined to the scar and treated successfully with cryosurgery again; four patients are alive without disease. Death was not related to cancer in the remained two cases. CONCLUSIONS: Cryotherapy is successful form of treatment of localised Paget's disease of the nipple--especially in face of contraindications for surgery or lack of patient's agreement for operational treatment.

Test of the method of differentiation between healthy and anomalous breast tissues using the open-ended dielectric probe covered by a dielectric film.

Dielectric properties of breast tissue obtained from 131 patients were investigated by an open-ended probe separated from the tissue by a dielectric film (plastic foil). The film decreases the measured capacitance, but the content of blood and body liquids has little effect on the measured quantity. We found that in cancerous tissue the electric capacity (related to the permittivity) measured at f > or = 10 MHz using the modified probe is higher than that in normal tissue. The dielectric assignment was confirmed by histopathology in 94% of investigated cases. High efficiency in differentiation between normal and cancer breast tissues and the feasibility of fulfilling of aseptic conditions (a film covering the probe) are promising in intra-operative cancer diagnostics.