Primary Peripheral T-cell Lymphoma of the Breast: Radiologic and Pathologic Findings

Abstract

Breast lymphoma is a rare disease entity worldwide, in either primary or secondary form, and makes up less than 0.5% of all breast malignancy.(1,2) Among all nonHodgkin’s lymphomas, only 0.7% show mammary tissue involvement.(2) Secondary forms of the disease are considered more common than primary ones,(3) with the primary forms representing 1.7% to 2.2% of all extranodal lymphomas,(4) probably attributing to less lymphoid tissue in the breast.(5) There have been a number of pathologic case reports on primary breast lymphomas, however, only a few have been included in the radiology literature. Furthermore, the majority of reports are on the B-cell type, which constitutes the majority of primary breast lymphomas.(1, 6) Published case reports on T-cell type primary breast lymphoma are very rare and published in pathology literature. There have been no reports on the radiologic features of primary T-cell type breast lymphoma. In the present report, we describe a case of primary T-cell breast lymphoma, focusing on radiologic findings that include mammography, ultrasonography, MR imaging, and 18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18 FDG-PET/CT) scan.