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Fat Necrosis - Post Surgical

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In this case, we have a 68-year-old female presenting

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with a palpable abnormality in the right breast.

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She's had a history of prior lumpectomy, uh,

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in the right breast near by this location,

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and has also had a prior history of benign, uh,

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ultrasound-guided biopsy for which we see clip here.

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Here, looking over where the PAL abnormality

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is underlying, we see a fat-containing

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mass, which has a thin encapsulated margin.

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Both the CC and MLO views.

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Now on both of these views, we see some, uh,

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faint or smaller, sorry, rim calcifications,

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which look like they marginate that area of fat.

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Um, now of course this would be pretty typical

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for fat process, um, with those thin sort of

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rim calcifications. Given her history of cancer,

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however, um, we've elected to have, uh, further

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workup with ultrasound just for confirmation.

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Uh, she subsequently underwent ultrasound,

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which showed this oval, circumscribed

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mass with some heterogeneous internal

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components and posterior acoustic shadow.

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These findings are, uh, compatible

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with evolving fat necrosis.

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Area, which we didn't, uh, completely evaluate here.

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So look at our DBT images.

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It won't be particularly helpful in this case,

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since we've already showed these, uh, rim

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calcifications, which are very stereotypical for fat necrosis.

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But it is always good to confirm that there's no

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additional mass that we're looking at to evaluate.

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So as we scroll through, we can see a very nice, thin,

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encapsulated margin, completely fat-containing mass.

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With no internal components, which would make

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us worry. In addition, deeper in the breast,

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there's no other abnormality which might

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be corresponding to the palp abnormality.

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We always wanna make sure that we look a little

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bit deeper too, just to make sure there's not

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some other finding that might be corresponding

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to the palp abnormality, and you think that it

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might be related to the more benign finding.

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Anyway, we see stereotypical, um, uh,

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findings of fat necrosis, um, likely related

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to her prior surgery at this location.

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Considered benign, recommend.

Report

Faculty

Ryan W. Woods, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Radiology

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Tags

Women's Health

Ultrasound

Tomosynthesis

Oncologic Imaging

Mammography

Breast

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