What is granulomatous mastitis?

Granulomatous mastitis is a common chronic inflammation of the breast. Currently, surgery is still the main treatment for this disease. This disease often occurs in young married women, but the course of the disease is relatively short. However, this disease is easy to go undiagnosed, and its symptoms are very similar to those of breast cancer. Generally, women with this disease often have breast inflammation and suppuration. If not diagnosed and treated in time, it can lead to serious consequences.

Granulomatous mastitis causes:

1. Autoimmune diseases: local immune phenomena and local hypersensitivity reactions caused by breast milk. Non-bacterial infection associated with the use of oral contraceptives. It may also be related to infection, trauma, and chemical stimulation that causes inflammation, destroys the ductal epithelium, and allows the contents of the cavity to enter the lobular interstitium, causing granulomatous reactions and further destroying the lobular structure. It is common in married and multiparous women of childbearing age.

2. It may be due to the reverse escape of milk, secretions and keratinized epithelium in the duct into the lobular interstitium, causing local inflammatory and hypersensitivity reactions, leading to the formation of granulation tissue.

3. Microabscesses, epithelial macrophages and foreign body granulomas can be seen in the lesions. It is believed that the disease is caused by local infection, trauma and inflammation caused by chemical substances. The ductal epithelium is destroyed due to inflammatory damage, and the contents of the ductal cavity enter the lobular interstitium, causing granulomatous inflammation.

diagnosis:

Clinical manifestations: The average age is 30 years old, and the course of the disease is short, usually within 5 months.

The main manifestations are: breast lumps, pain, hard texture, irregular shape, unclear boundaries with normal tissue, and enlarged lymph nodes in the ipsilateral axillary. The onset is sudden or the lump suddenly increases in size. After a few days, the skin turns red and forms small abscesses. There is not much pus after the abscesses break, and the abscesses do not heal for a long time, with redness, swelling and ulceration occurring one after another.

The initial lump stage is very similar to breast cancer, which can easily lead to misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment. If someone rashly undergoes radical mastectomy, the breast cancer should be frozen on the table or patiently wait for the results of paraffin sectioning. This disease must also be differentiated from breast tuberculosis, breast fat necrosis, etc.

When there is redness, swelling, and suppuration, it may be misdiagnosed as plasma cell mastitis, duct ectasia, breast tuberculosis, or a general bacterial abscess, with incorrect incision and drainage.