Primary Breast Tuberculosis Mastitis Manifested as Nonhealing Abscess

Abstract: Primary breast tuberculosis (TB) is a rare extrapulmonary TB mainly affecting young women of childbearing age from endemic countries. Its incidence is increasing in immunocompromised and HIV-infected people and with the emergence of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). There are no specific clinical signs suggestive of this disease, it often presents as a hard mass or breast abscess. There is an overlap of features with other inflammatory, infectious, benign lesions, fat necrosis and malignant neoplasms of the breast. The detection of MTB remains the gold standard for diagnosis. Several other diagnostic modalities are used, with varying lack of sensitivity and specificity, and with a range of false negatives. A quarter of cases were treated solely on the basis of clinical, imaging or histological suspicion, without confirmation of the diagnosis. Therefore, we report the case of a young Vietnamese woman, presented for a nonhealing breast abscess, and diagnosed with breast TB based on the patient's ethnicity, histological findings, lack of clinical response to conventional antibiotic therapy, and a good clinical response to anti-TB treatment.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Primary Breast Tuberculosis Mastitis Manifested as Nonhealing Abscess ; volume:08 ; number:02 ; year:2022 ; pages:e123-e126 ; The surgery journal ; 08, Heft 02 (2022), e123-e126

Contributors, Places and Time

• Contributor: Hoang, Huu ; El-Helou, Etienne ; Pop, Catalin-Florin ; Shall, Ammar ; Zaiter, Manar ; Naccour, Jessica ; Nguyen, Tran T. H. ; Ho, Xuan D. ; Nguyen, Van C.

Further information

• DOI: 10.1055/s-0042-1749123
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022072811214746332238
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:23 AM CEST