Injected liquid silicone, chronic mastitis, and undetected breast cancer

Although the use of injected liquid silicone for breast augmentation has all but ceased since its widespread use in the 1960s, patients with injected silicone are still seen with a multitude of symptoms. Silicone mastitis is a well-documented phenomenon; however, there has been a paucity of information regarding cancer detection in this group of patients. We report 2 patients who presented with chronic mastitis but on further workup were found to have breast cancer. In both patients, early cancer detection was adversely affected by the presence of free liquid silicone. In view of this and other similar case reports, we advise that simple mastectomy be recommended to those patients with breasts inspissated with liquid silicone who not only have suspicious masses but present with recurrent mastitis or a family history of breast cancer.