The Effectiveness of Diclofenac Sodium in the Treatment of Mondor's Disease of the Breast: The Topical Patch Compared to the Oral Capsules.

Mondor's disease of the breast is a rare, benign sclerosing superficial thrombophlebitis of the subcutaneous veins of the anterior or lateral chest wall, which is treated conservatively. We aim in this study to evaluate the outcome and effectiveness of our treatment protocol using oral diclofenac sodium and topical diclofenac sodium patch in 172 patients. A retrospective database analysis of 172 female patients between January 2001 and December 2010 was done. The treatment protocol consisted of group 1: treatment by oral diclofenac sodium 100 mg once daily for 3 weeks. Group 2: treatment by diclofenac sodium patches for 8 hours twice daily (morning and evening) for 1 week. The patients were instructed to document the time as soon as pain relief is achieved following the patch application and the intake of the oral dose. The incidence rate was 2.49%. Diclofenac sodium patch was statistically found to be significantly better in subsiding the inflammatory process of the veins, relieving the pain, and enhancing faster healing rate. We conclude that diclofenac sodium patch showed a promising role in the treatment of Mondor's disease of the breast by significantly decreasing the inflammatory process due to its transdermal migration action within a short period and the ability to reach a high local concentration. It achieved the best results for rapid relief of pain and disease regression compared to the oral capsules. Therefore, our protocol was changed to implement diclofenac sodium patch as the first choice in treating Mondor's disease of the breast.

Incidental unilateral and bilateral ductal carcinoma in situ encountered in the surgical management of young male gynecomastia.

BACKGROUND: The increased risk for malignant tumors associated with male gynecomastia has been well established and many authors have reported cases of concurrent gynecomastia and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in the same breast. Synchronous bilateral breast cancer in association with gynecomastia is exceptionally rare. We aim to report and evaluate the management outcome of 5 cases of gynecomastia associated with DCIS (1 bilateral and 4 unilateral). METHODS: A retrospective database analysis of the surgical treatment outcome of 74 male patients who had gynecomastia was done. A bilateral subcutaneous nipple-preserving mastectomy approach was done to all. Histopathology reports were reviewed. RESULTS: 74 patients diagnosed and treated for gynecomastia were included. The incidence rate of gynecomastia in our hospital male patients was 0.17%. The mean age was 22 years, range 17-29 years. Five (6.76%) patients were found in histopathology specimens to have DCIS, 1 patient (23 years old) had bilateral DCIS of low grade, 4 patients had unilateral positive involvement, 3 had right breast DCIS, and 1 had left breast DCIS, and all were of low-grade papillary subtype. The incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ among our series gynecomastia patients was 6.76%. CONCLUSION: We conclude that gynecomastia is a benign breast disease but recent reports had described malignant variants, mostly DCIS, including 5 young males in our series. Therefore, regardless of the age group, histopathological examination of the resected gynecomastia tissue should be carefully done in all patients. Further evidence-based studies are needed to investigate the optimum management of incidental DCIS in gynecomastia specimens.