Gestational Antibioma of the Breast: A Rare Case Presentation

Abstract

Breast is an important organ of the female human body. It is composed of skin, subcutaneous tissue and breast tissue. Mastitis is defined as inflammation of the breast tissue. It is painful with high fever, chills and red, tender, hot, and swollen areas of the breast. The causes are mainly inflammatory or infectious. Staphylococcus aureus is the most common bacteria involved in this condition. If left under-treated or untreated, infective mastitis can lead to breast abscess or septicemia. Management of breast abscess consists of aspiration or mini incision and drainage in combination with appropriate antibiotic therapy. An antibioma is defined as a hard edematous swelling consisting of sterile pus following treatment of an abscess with long-term antibiotics. The established treatment for antibioma is to surgically incise and drain it like an abscess under analgesics and antimicrobial therapy. Breast infection is most commonly associated with lactation with an incidence rate of 10 percent to 33 percent women. Lactational mastitis has an incidence rate of 2-3 percent of lactating women with 5-11 percent of these patients developing into an abscess. The mean age of incidence is 32 years. On the other hand, non-lactating breast abscesses has a peak incidence in the fourth decade of life. But this condition is rare during gestation with only a few reported cases in literature. We present one such rare case of gestational antibioma in second trimester.