The diagnostic value of galactography in patients with nipple discharge

To evaluate preoperative galactographic findings in the differentiation between the benign and malignant lesions in patients presenting spontaneous nipple discharge without mass. Of the 215 patients who have undergone the galactography, 181 cases with abnormal galactography had surgery performed. All galactrograms were reviewed and galactographic findings were correlated to the pathological results to determine diagnostic differentiation. Of the 181 cases we operated on, 112 cases were macroscopically bloody, with 30 cases having cancers (26.8%). Fifty-four cases with serous discharge had seven cancer cases (13.0%). No cancer cases with other color discharge were found. Of the 37 cancer cases, 11 cases had lesions located in the main mammary ducts (lactiferous duct and the segmental duct) (29.7%) and 26 cases had lesions in the peripheral ducts (the subsegmental duct and its branches) (70.3%) (P<.05). Of 113 cases with benign proliferative ductal lesions, 88 cases were located in the main mammary duct (77.9%) and 25 cases in the peripheral mammary duct (22.1%) (P<.05). Otherwise, 29 cancer cases (82.9%) had ductal obstructions and 28 cancer cases (75.7%) had irregular intraductal defects that appeared in the galactograms, which is different from the 113 benign proliferative ductal lesion cases that had 88 cases (71.7%) with ductal dilatation and 90 cases (79.6%) with lobular or smooth intraductal defects (P<.05). These results showed that the cancer cases had a higher rate of locating in the peripheral duct, irregular intraductal duct defects, and ductal obstruction, and a lower rate associated with ductal dilatation or torsion. The galactographic findings were evaluated using the tumor location, types of intraductal defects, ductal obstruction, and dilatation. Preoperative diagnostic galactography is useful in differentiating between the benign or malignant lesions in patients with spontaneous nipple discharge.