Silicone granuloma

Breast

Published in Tor Wo Chiu, Stone’s Plastic Surgery Facts, 2018

A silicone granuloma is a foreign-body type reaction to the presence of silicone formed by aggregates of macrophages and polymorphs. There is no evidence to suggest that they bear any relationship to any form of systemic disease; most are excised simply to exclude malignancy.

Silicone granuloma mimicking Breast Implant Associated Large Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL): a case report

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Journal Information

Published in Case Reports in Plastic Surgery and Hand Surgery, 2020

Elizabeth Shepard, Srdjan Kamenko, Olivia L. Snir, Juliana Hansen

As it pertains to imaging, mass enhancement with contrast MRI is much more typical of malignancy than silicone granuloma, though silicone enhancement has been reported in the literature and was observed in our patient [8]. Moreover, falsely positive PET scans occur with silicone granuloma and adenitis, in addition to other inflammatory states, given the high metabolic activity observed in inflammatory cells [8,15]. Carsen et al. described thirteen cases of silicone granuloma mimicking cancer. In their literature review, nine patients presented with breast masses, five patients had either axillary, mediastinal or internal mammary adenopathy, and four of the four patients who underwent PET imaging had false positive results [8]. Our patient’s imaging revealed generalized, enhancing adenopathy, an enhancing mass on MRI and marked left axillary radiotracer uptake, consistent with other cases of silicone granuloma mimicking cancer. While her left axillary adenopathy was not sampled, it was hypothesize to represent silicone adenitis.

Silicone granuloma

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Breast

Silicone granuloma mimicking Breast Implant Associated Large Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL): a case report