False-Positive Nodes With Axillary Silicone Lymphadenopathy in an Oncologic Patient With a Rare Breast Cancer and Implant Rupture

Abstract

In this case, a 43-year-old woman with a rare breast tumor and a history of augmentation mammoplasty is presented. The patient arrived at the clinic reporting a palpable lump in the right mammary gland and two ipsilateral axillary nodes with pain on palpation. Mammography and ultrasound confirmed the presence of a 4 cm tumor and 2 metastatic lymph nodes of 2 cm each, histopathological diagnosis was an encapsulated papillary cancer and two siliconomas, respectively. Interestingly, these nodes were able to take up technetium 99 and methylene blue contrast media. Due to these findings, adequate patient management was carried out with a skin-sparing mastectomy and hormonal treatment with tamoxifen. This report is relevant as it shows that axillary lymphadenopathy caused by silicone must be considered in the evaluation of a patient with a cancer diagnosis and history of augmentation mammoplasty, especially breast cancer as the node siliconomas present a high risk of being considered a false positive metastasis.