A New Mass Near a BioZorb Implant Was a Foreign-Body Reaction
This breast cancer diagnosis at a glance
- Subtype
- Invasive Ductal Carcinoma
- Biomarkers
- ER-positive; PR-positive; HER2-negative.
- Sex
- Female
- Treatment
- surgery, radiation and surveillance
- Outcome
- Cancer-Free / NED
Treatment course, step by step
- Left breast lumpectomy with BioZorb placement and negative sentinel-node biopsy was performed.
- Postoperative radiation was completed.
- Mammographic surveillance was performed every six months.
- A new mass at 2.5 years was biopsied and showed a foreign-body inflammatory reaction.
- Six-month follow-up mammography showed no evidence of malignancy.
What happened, in summary
A 49-year-old woman had a 5 mm mass detected by screening mammography in the upper outer left breast. Biopsy showed grade 1 invasive ductal carcinoma that was ER-positive, PR-positive, and HER2-negative.
She underwent left lumpectomy with placement of a BioZorb marker, and sentinel-node biopsy was negative. Postoperative radiation followed. The treated breast was then monitored with mammography every six months.
Two and a half years after surgery, surveillance imaging found a new mass along the lower edge of the BioZorb site in the axillary tail, with a corresponding ultrasound finding. Because a new mass near a lumpectomy bed can represent recurrence, tissue sampling was performed. Biopsy instead showed foreign material surrounded by histiocytes, giant cells, and lymphocytes, consistent with a reaction to the surgical site rather than cancer.
A mammogram six months later showed only postoperative and post-biopsy changes, with no mammographic evidence of malignancy. Her course illustrates how tissue reaction around a BioZorb device can resemble a new breast-cancer mass during surveillance.
Where this story comes from
This is a lay summary of an account first published by PMC / PubMed Central. Read the original in full
How we source and attribute stories Accuracy and limitations
Collections this story belongs to
- ER Positive Breast Cancer 242 stories
- Lumpectomy for Breast Cancer 208 stories
These are lay summaries of published cancer stories, for information only. No two cancers behave the same way, and nothing here predicts your own diagnosis or replaces advice from your oncology team. Read the full disclaimer