Other tumours of the breast

Lipoma

A true lipoma is very rare.

Sarcoma of the breast

Sarcoma of the breast is usually of the spindle-cell variety, and accounts for 0.5 per cent of malignant tumours of the breast. Some of these growths arise in an intracanalicular fibroadenoma or may follow previous radiotherapy, e.g. for Hodgkin’s lymphoma many years previously. It may be impossible to distinguish clinically a sarcoma of the breast from a medullary carcinoma, hut areas of cystic degeneration suggest a sarcoma and on incising the neoplasm it is pale and friable. Sarcoma tends to occur in younger women between the ages of 30 and 40. Treatment is by simple mastectomy followed by radiotherapy. The prognosis depends on the stage and histological type.

  Metastases

On rare occasions, cancer elsewhere may present with a metastasis in the breast. The breast is also occasionally infiltrated by Hodgkin’s disease and other lymphomas.