Isolated breast vasculitis manifested as breast edema with suggestive sonographic findings: a case report with imaging findings

Abstract

Early diagnosis of breast vasculitis (BV) is difficult because this condition is rare and occasionally mimics breast cancer clinically or radiologically. It may present as systemic disease or as an isolated lesion in the breast, without systemic evidence. When vasculitis appears in the breast, it also might manifest as a tumor-like lesion, and in previous cases, tissue acquisition was needed for confirmation of the diagnosis because of BV’s resemblance to inflammatory breast cancer. We report a case of isolated BV that was suspected of being inflammatory breast cancer clinically, but manifested as bilateral breast edema on mammography. In this case, sonographic findings included not only nonspecific edema findings that might be seen in other cases, but also suggestive findings of hypoechoic circumferential arterial wall thickening with perivascular fat infiltrations that are similar to the halo sign in large arteries but have not been reported in the breast. These are helpful for presumptive diagnosis of BV using ultrasound.