Breast paraffinoma: An obsolete but still important condition - Experience with 60 cases and the literature review

Abstract

Background: Paraffin injections for breast augmentation has been abandoned by clinicians because of its serious long-term complications. The practice is still prevalent and long-term complications are still being encountered in clinical practice today.

Methods: Retrospective review was performed on patients with breast paraffinoma managed in Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Saleha Hospital, Brunei Darussalam, between January 1, 2010 and August 31, 2020. Patients' demographics, presentations, investigations, treatment and follow-up outcomes were reviewed. A literature review on breast paraffinoma was also performed.

Results: We reviewed the data by combining our dataset of 60 patients with those extracted from the published articles, totaling 232 patients from 31 articles. The mean age at presentation was 48.8 (range 29-78) years with a preponderance of female patients. The most common presenting symptoms were painless lumps (65.5%), painful lumps (14.7%), ulcer (7.3%), skin discoloration (2.4%), sinus (1.7%) and abscess (1.0%). The most common imaging modality used was mammography (70.7%), MRI (52.6%) and ultrasonography (47.8%). Majority of the reported cases underwent surgical treatment; mastectomy was performed in 53.4% of the cases, excision of the paraffinoma in 17.7% of cases and 0.9% of cases had incision and drainage. A quarter of the patients (25%) did not require any further treatment. The mean follow-up was 4 (range 1-10) years with a mortality rate of 3.0%.

Conclusions: Awareness of this condition will assist the clinicians in making the correct diagnosis and instituting the appropriate treatment. It is important to exclude co-existing breast cancer.

Keywords: Breast paraffin injection; Breast paraffinoma; Co-existing breast cancer.