Hamartoma of the breast in a post-menopausal woman - case report

The term hamartoma was first coined by Arrigoni et al in 1971 [1] as well- demarcated mostly encapsulated nodule representing as a mass composed of varying amount of benign epithelial elements, fibrous tissue, and fat. Breast hamartoma is benign proliferations of variable amounts of epithelium and stromal supporting tissues. Many authors consider this entity to be underdiagnosed[2-4]. Breast hamartomas are rare, benign, tumor
composed of glandular, adipose and fibrous tissue. There are several variants such as lipofibroadenoma fibroadenolipoma or adenolipoma, based on the predominant component of the breast tissue in mass lesion. Clinicaly hamartoma resembling fibroadenoma with big palpable mass. The pathogenesis of the development of a breast hamartoma is still not fully understood. Ductal hyperplasia, apocrine metaplasia, calcification and adenosis may occur within the hamartoma, with rarer instances of lobular or ductal intraepithelial neoplasms. Hamartoma is a benign but transformation into malignant may occurs. So excision and biopsy is necessary with histopathological examination of biopsy sample. The patient in this study was treated with lumpectomy as there was no evidence of any cellular atypia/malignancy in FNAC report of the lump. There was no recurrence or any other complication detected during follow up period. Current study shows case of breast
hamartoma which was diagnosed as an hamartoma on the basis of macroscopic and microscopic analysis of lesion