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.