Linguine sign (breast)

Last revised by Andrew Murphy ◉ on 23 Mar 2023

Citation, DOI, disclosures and article data

Citation:

Dawes L, Baba Y, Vadera S, et al. Linguine sign (breast). Reference article, Radiopaedia.org (Accessed on 31 May 2023) https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-1586

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-1586

Permalink:

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/1586

rID:

1586

Article created:

2 May 2008, Laughlin Dawes

Disclosures:

At the time the article was created Laughlin Dawes had no recorded disclosures.

View Laughlin Dawes's current disclosures

Last revised:

23 Mar 2023, Andrew Murphy ◉

Disclosures:

At the time the article was last revised Andrew Murphy had no financial relationships to ineligible companies to disclose.

View Andrew Murphy's current disclosures

Revisions:

27 times, by 11 contributors - see full revision history and disclosures

Systems:

Breast

Sections:

Signs

Tags:

breast implants, cases

Synonyms:

Linguini sign
Wavy line sign

Linguine sign, also known as the wavy line sign, is one of the imaging signs of intracapsular rupture of a breast implant ⁴.

After implantation of a silicone or saline breast implant, a fibrous capsule (scar) forms around the implant shell. In an intracapsular rupture, the contents of the implant are contained by the fibrous scar, while the shell appears as a group of wavy lines. This has been termed the "linguine sign" and has been most commonly described with MR imaging, although it can also occasionally be depicted on CT.

Radiographic features

MRI

Seepage of silicone into intracapsular space causes partial or complete implant collapse and appears as multiple low-signal-intensity curvilinear lines on T2 weighted MR images ⁴.