TRAUMATIC FAT NECROSIS OF THE BREAST

Traumatized or ischemic fat in any part of the body can undergo sterile autolysis or heterolysis resulting in saponification by histiocytes and giant cells. Shattock in 1896 gave an accurate description of the changes found in his case of "saponifying necrosis in a lipoma of the thigh." Fat necrosis has occurred in the subcutaneous tissues of young infants (Farr) in a hernial sac, the thigh, the buttock or the abdominal fat. These lesions are harmless and of little clinical importance. When fat necrosis occurs in the cellulo-adipose tissues over the breast or in the breast, however, the lesion assumes a special clinical significance principally because it mimics so closely the clinical signs of mammary cancer. The knowledge of this lesion dates from a report in 1920 of two cases by Lee and Adair.¹ In one of their cases a radical amputation of the breast, muscles and axillary contents was