[A woman with a disappearing breast]

A 76-year-old woman presented with dyspnea. She had received breast conserving therapy for cancer in her left breast 26 years earlier. During physical examination a redness of the skin on the left side of the torso and neck, as well as disappearance of the left breast and shift of the left nipple was noted. This proved to be a metastatic recurrence of the breast cancer. Despite over 20 years of follow-up consisting of mammography, the complete shrinkage of the breast as an expression of locally recurrent disease was missed because no physical examination was performed. This underlines the importance of physical examination in addition to mammography in the follow-up of breast cancer patients.