Coexistence of carcinoma and tuberculosis in one breast.docVIP

World Journal of Surgical Oncology BioMedCentral Case report Open Access Coexistence of carcinoma and tuberculosis in one breast Ahmed Alzaraa*1 and Neha Dalal2 Address: 1Department of General surgery, Tameside General Hospital, Manchester, UK and 2Department of Histopathology, Tameside General Hospital, Manchester, UK Email: Ahmed Alzaraa* - ahmedwahabf@; Neha Dalal - neha.dalal@tgh.nhs.uk * Corresponding author Published: 4 March 2008 Received: 19 October 2007 Accepted: 4 March 2008 World Journal of Surgical Oncology 2008, 6:29 doi:10.1186/1477-7819-6-29 This article is available from: /content/6/1/29 ? 2008 Alzaraa and Dalal; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The coexistence of breast cancer and tuberculosis is very rare. This can create a dilemma in the diagnosis and treatment as there are no pathognomonic symptoms or signs to distinguish both diseases. Case presentation: A female patient was seen in the breast clinic for a right breast lump. Clinical examination and investigation confirmed cancer and tuberculosis of the right breast. She underwent right mastectomy and axillary clearance and received chemo and radiotherapy. Unfortunately, she died of wide spread metastases. Conclusion: The simultaneous occurrence of these two major illnesses in the breast can lead to many problems regarding diagnosis and treatment. Though rare, surgeons, pathologists and radiologists should be aware of such condition. Background Mammogram showed asymmetric increased density in the right retro-areolar area with some skin thickening of the areola and some retraction of the nipple (Figure 1). Foci of fine calcification were also n