Occurrence of pathologic findings in accessory breast of axillae

Background: Extramammary glands occurred along the embryonic milk linethat extended from axillea to the groin in about 1-6% of the general population.It is most commonly found in axilla but is also reported in thoracic,abdominal,inguinal and vulvar regions. Physiologic changes may be occurred during themenestural cycle,pregnancy and posypartum periods. Various but rare lesionsmay involve these ectopic glands. Although ectopic breast tissue (EBT) ispresent at birth, it stays asymptomatic until puberty, pregnancy, or lactation andthe presence of EBT is often symptomatic exclusively during pregnancy orlactation due to hormonal influence. The aberrant breast tissue existing in theectopic region can be the origin of the lesions which are similar to breastlesions.Some of these lesions are as follows: Mastitis, cysts, fibrocystic disease,Lactating changes or adenoma , papillomas ,fibroadenoma, Phyllodes tumor,sclreosing adenosis, duct hyperplasia, and some kinds of carcinoma such asextramammary Paget s disease and invasive adenocarcinoma. Our objective isto evaluate the occurrence of pathologic findings in accessory breast of axillae.Patients and Methods: For this cross-sectional study data were evaluated from23 patients who underwent excisonal biopsy for axillary mass at Rajaee andVelayat Hospitals between April 2007 and October 2012. The data from theseparticipants were obtained by a check list and review of surgically excisedspeciemens.The results were expressed by histopathologic diagnosis.Bothdescriptive and statistical analysis methods were applied.Results: Age range of women in this study was 24-41 years.Most common chiefcomplain was axillary mass.Histopathologic findings in (8.7% ) of the patients shownmastitis, (35.5% ) fibrocystic disease, (12.7% ) lactating changes, (4.3% )fibroadenoma, (4.3% ) Phyllodes tumor, ( 8.7% ) ductal hyperplasia , (4.3% ) ductalcarcinoma in situ. (21.5%) shown no significant pathologic changes in examinedsections.Conclusions: The EBT may prove to be a diagnostic difficulty and this entity mustbe kept in mind while facing with axillary mass. The EBT should be investigate,carefully,because it may be affected by many number of benign or malignantdiseases.Among the large number of subjects with EBT, if conservative managementis chosen, self- examination and periodic clinical evaluation is hightly ,mandatory.

کلیدواژه ها:

Accessory breast ، Fibroadenoma ، Phyllodes tumor ، Carcinoma in situ