Breast Cancer and a Rare Benign Blood-Vessel Growth Found in the Same Lymph Node

What happened, in summary

A 47-year-old woman was diagnosed with moderately differentiated invasive breast carcinoma of ductal type. The tumor was hormone receptor-positive and HER2-negative and measured 9.5 cm in the upper outer part of the left breast. Enlarged lymph nodes in the same axilla were clinically suspicious for regional spread.

She did not receive treatment before surgery and underwent a total mastectomy with axillary lymph-node dissection. Pathology confirmed breast-cancer deposits in four level I lymph nodes and one level II lymph node. In the level II node, the pathologists also found a small 0.4 cm capillary hemangioma, a benign blood-vessel growth, alongside the metastatic breast cancer.

The unusual finding was the coexistence of metastatic breast cancer and a benign hemangioma within the same lymph node. The five involved axillary nodes represented regional nodal spread rather than distant organ metastases.