Granulomatous mastitis

Abstract

Granulomatous mastitis is a chronic, benign and inflammatory disease of the breasts from idiopatic etiology. It usually appears in women until 5 years after giving birth. The main hypothesis explains an autoimmune phenomenon as a result of expelled antigens from the breast-feeding period.Its clinical expression varies a lot, ranging from mastitis, fistulas or nodules. Usually it is seen as a hard nodule in any of the breast quadrants.Due to the fact that granulomatous mastitis clinically resembles inflammatory breast cancer, the diagnosis becomes challenging, needing different radiological tests as well as histiopatological samples for the final diagnosis. The treatment is not well established, and the two main options are complete escision of the breast or corticoesteroids with methotrexate. Even with this treatment, in half of cases the disease chronifies.