Tuberculosis of the breast, either primary or secondary, is one of the extremely rare
disease, compare to the general incidence of the tuberculosis in human baings.
However, If we give more attension to the possibility of the mammary tuberculosis,
we could detect more cases in. our country because of high prevalence of the
tuberculosis.
Preoperative clinical diagnosis of the breast tuberculosis is very hard to make because
of the difficulties of the differential diagnosis between breast cancer, comedomastitis, and
various chronic mastitis which are more common disease in breast.
Definite diagnosis of the disease can be done through bacteriologic study and
histopathological examination only.
Treatment of the disease may be either medical (antituberculous drugs) or surgical.
The simple mastectomy or local excision of the lesion is the enough surgical
procedure for the disease.
For the proper surgical management of all the suspicious breast lesions, we believe
the use of the frozen section is essential to avoid unnecessary radical mastectomy.
A case of tuberculosis of the breast occurring in a 30-year-old female is presented
with summary of the pathological and clinical characteristics, and it's differential
diagnosis is also discussed with review of the literatures.
Clinically, she complained of a slightly movable mass of the right breast for 6 years.
On operation, ill defined nodular cystic lesions with sinus tract is noted, filled with
caseous materials.
Complete excision of the nodular mass was performed.
|