Crystallizing galactocele: Report of a rare variation

The physiological changes of the breast during pregnancy and lactation make the clinical, radiological and pathological evaluation of a breast mass challenging. Galactoceles are benign lesions containing milk, and generally occur post partum. Fine needle aspiration cytology is a simple, quick and effective technique for the diagnosis of the same during this period, and in case of galactocele the same can be both diagnostic and therapeutic.Although the cytological features of galactocele are straight forward, a few rare interesting variations can be encountered posing a diagnostic challenge to the reporting cytopathologist. We present a case of galactocele in a twenty five year old lactating female with tyrosine crystals on cytology. Milk is composed of a wide variety of proteins and minerals, leading to the formation of calcium lactate or tyrosine crystals under rare circumstances when the milieu is acidic. This is one of the rare cases of crystallizing galactoceles reported in literature till date.