[Mastitis as a symptom of malignancy]

Several conditions can mimic the clinical presentation of inflammatory breast cancer. Three women presented with a swollen, red and painful breast which turned out to be inflammatory breast cancer after being treated as infectious mastitis. Non-puerperal bacterial mastitis may be confused with inflammatory breast cancer, leading to potentially preventable delays in diagnosis and treatment. The skin changes in inflammatory breast cancer are caused by tumour emboli within the dermal lymphatics, and not by infiltration of inflammatory cells as is suggested by the nomenclature. Patients who are treated for suspected mastitis without clinical improvement in one week should be referred to outpatient care in the surgery department to exclude underlying malignancy.