Clinical Characteristics of Patients Hospitalized with an Initial Diagnosis of Mastitis

Background and Mastitis or infection of breast tissue is a common condition in women, especially in childbearing age and is treated on outpatient basis. Sometimes, in the evaluation of mastitis, particularly in chronic mastitis, a physician detect rare forms such as granulomatous mastitis and malignancies. The aim of this study was to evaluate some clinical characteristics of patients who were hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of mastitis.
In this cross-sectional analysis, data was obtained from the records of 46 females admitted in Qaemshahr Razi Hospital. The patients were initially diagnosed with mastitis and hospitalized from 2010-2015. Risk factors, patients’ history, physical examination, laboratory data, ultrasound and mammogram results, methods of diagnosis, treatments, pathology results, and final diagnosis were recorded in a checklist.
In this investigation 8 patients (18%) were in post monoposal period and, 38 (82%) were premonoposal. The mean age of patients was 33.18±7.08 years old. Eight patients had recurrent mastitis and 4 had a history of previous history of breast surgery. The final diagnosis in six patients (13%) was granulomatous mastitis who all had recurrent mastitis. Meanwhile two patients were diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer.
Mastitis can be caused by infection, granulomatous, and even malignancy. In case of recurrence, biopsy and histopathology are required to make final diagnosis.