Objective: To perform a retrospective review of the clinical characteristics, microbiological data, and clinical outcomes in patients with granulomatous mastitis (GM) who were treated at our institution with a unique strategy of prolonged antibiotic therapy as the primary treatment modality.
Materials and Methods:A retrospective case series was performed on patients (n = 42) with GM seen at the breast specialty clinic of our institution between the years 2004 and 2014. Patients were primarily treated with lipophilic antibiotics, and steroids and surgery were reserved for refractory cases.Results: Bacteria were identified in 34 samples from 22/42 patients (52.3%). Diphtheroids (presumptive Corynebacterium spp.) were most commonly identified, followed by Corynebacterium spp. and Propionibacterium acnes (now Cutibacterium acnes). Antibiotics were our preferred first-line medical therapy and were used in 33/36 (91.7%) patients. The mean duration of antibiotic therapy was 7.0±4.5 months. Clarithromycin was our antibiotic of choice and was the initial antibiotic used in 15 of the 33 patients (45.5%) treated with antibiotics. Eleven patients required adjunctive therapy with prednisone. The mean duration of steroid therapy was 4.3±2.5 months. Surgery for therapeutic purposes included incision and drainage in seven patients, fine needle aspiration in eight patients, and excision of the fistulous tract in one patient. No patients had large-volume excisions. The average time from the first breast clinic visit to clinical resolution was 8.0±4.6 months.
Conclusion:GM may be the result of a bacterial process that induces a unique form of inflammatory response. Clinicians should consider special requests to microbiology laboratories to attempt to isolate Corynebacterium spp. in the evaluation of samples sent to the laboratory for analysis. An extended course of a lipophilic antibiotic is a largely unexplored but potentially effective treatment option with low associated morbidity. More research is needed in this area.
Reproductive justice is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and to parent children in safe and sustainable communities. Historically, marginalized individuals have experienced reproductive oppression in multiple forms. This oppression continues in modern times through health policy and patient-clinician communication. To combat this, the framework of reproductive justice outlines four key actions: analyzing power systems, addressing intersecting oppressions, centering the most marginalized, and joining together across issues and identities. Primary care clinicians have a unique role and responsibility to carry out these four key actions in order to provide patient centered reproductive care. To translate reproductive justice into clinical practice, clinicians care can use reflective practice, the framework of cultural humility, and the concepts from the explanatory model of illness.
Background: Primary care training should include competencies to provide reproductive health services. In the United Sates, primary care is often provided by general internal medicine physicians. Longitudinal training experiences for internal medicine residents in women's health increase knowledge, skills and retention in careers in women's health, but very little literature describes their implementation. The purpose of this paper is to describe the implementation and evaluation of a 2-year women's health training pathway in Internal Medicine.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.