An occult breast mass

doi:10.1136/bmj.b4316

Published 4 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4316
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4316

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An occult breast mass

C J Burke, specialist registrar radiology, R Thomas, specialist registrar radiology, D C Howlett, consultant radiologist

¹ Department of Radiology, Eastbourne General Hospital, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 2UD

Correspondence to: C J Burke, 42 Arminger Road, London W12 7BB drchristopherburke@gmail.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A 69 year old woman was referred by her general practitionerto the rapid access breast clinic because of a two week historyof painless swelling in the upper left breast. She had no historyof nipple change or discharge, and she was otherwise well withno medical history of note. On clinical examination she hada firm, ill defined, and non-tender swelling above the leftnipple, with no palpable axillary nodes. Free hand, fine needleaspiration was undertaken and she was referred for imaging.Bilateral mammography showed moderately dense breast tissueonly, and no focal lesion was seen on ultrasound of the leftbreast.

Results of needle cytology showed benign cells only. Becauseof persisting clinical concern and the dense breast tissue seenon mammography, breast magnetic resonance imaging was performed.Figure 1 is an axial post-contrast, fat saturated magnetic resonanceimage through the superior portion of the breasts. . . . [Full text of this article]