This site is targeted at medical and radiology professionals, contains user contributed content, and material that may be confusing to a lay audience. Use of this site implies acceptance of our Terms of Use.

Mastitis

Dr Yuranga Weerakkody and Dr Frank Gaillard et al.

Mastitis refers to inflammation of the breast parenchyma, of which there are a number of sub types :

acute mastitis
- puerperal mastitis : occurs usually from infection with Staphylococcus during lactation
- non-puerperal mastitis : not related to lactation, and occurs usually in older women
plasma cell mastitis (mammary duct ectasia) : uncommon sub areolar inflammation without associated bacterial infection.
granulomatous mastitis : rare ; usually occurs due to tuberculosis or sarcoidosis

Clinical features

Clinically, the breast will be indurated, red and painful. Nipple retraction may also be evident. Nodal enlargement is common. The patient may often have systemic symptoms such as fever or leukocytosis.

Radiographic features

Mammography

On mammography, bacterial (puerperal or non-puerperal) mastitis will usually feature ill defined regions of increased density.

Breast ultrasound

On ultrasound, the skin will be thickened, and abscess formation may be visible.

Complications

breast abscess formation

Differential diagnosis

It is important to consider inflammatory breast cancer as a potential differential.

This article is a stub, which means it needs more content. You can contribute to Radiopaedia.org too. Just register and edit... every little bit helps.