Peliosis hepatis (PH) is a disease characterized by multiple and small, blood-filled cysts within the parenchymatous organs. PH is a very rare disease, more common in adults, and when it affects the liver, it comes to the surgeon's attention only in an extremely urgent situation after the lesion's rupture with the resulting hemoperitoneum. This report describes the case of a 29-year-old woman affected by recurring abdominal pain. Computed tomography scans showed a hepatic lesion formed by multiple hypodense areas, which showed an early acquisition of the contrast during the arterial phase. Furthermore, it remained isodense with the remaining parenchyma during the late venous phase. We decided on performing a liver resection of segment VII while avoiding a biopsy for safety reasons. The histopathologic examination confirmed the diagnosis of focal PH. PH should always be considered in the differential diagnosis of hepatic lesions. Clinicians should discuss the possible causes and issues related to the differential diagnosis in addition to the appropriate therapeutic approach. The fortuitous finding of a lesion, potentially compatible with PH, requires elective surgery with diagnostic and therapeutic intents. The main aim is to prevent the risk of a sudden bleeding that, in absence of properly equipped structures, may have a fatal outcome.

Lymphangiomas are congenital malformations of lymphatic vessels. More than 50% of these lesions are present at birth; 90% are diagnosed by the age of 2. These lesions do not expand very rapidly but they tend to infiltrate surrounding tissues; their degeneration into malignant tumors is an extremely rare occurrence. They are mostly located in the neck region and the axilla; breast lymphangioma is very rare. Surgery is usually performed for aesthetic reasons and in order to make a differential diagnosis with other, more common lesions. The surgical procedure involves the excision of the mass; other methods, such as radiotherapy and sclerotherapy, have proved to be completely ineffective.

BackgroundPrimitive sarcoma of the breast is a rare and challenging disease at high risk of recurrence and with poor prognosis. There are controversies in the diagnosis and management of such solid tumor due to its rarity and heterogeneity. This sarcoma is poorly responsive to both chemotherapy and radiotherapy, thus, surgery is the first and most important therapeutic approach. However, given the rarity of this type tumor it has not be possible to standardize unique guidelines for the proper surgical strategy to adopt. Here, we performed a retrospective study of new 10 cases of primitive sarcoma of the breast that underwent either mastectomy or a more conservative quadrantectomy, in the attempt to better standardize correct surgical indications.MethodsTen new cases of primitive sarcoma of the breast were registered between 2002 and 2012 and constituted the study group. They underwent either mastectomy or quadrantectomy and the clinical, prognostic and survival characteristics after surgery were analysed.ResultsWithin the group of patients treated with mastectomy, two had metastasis and died because of that. Among the five patients treated with quadrantectomy four are alive and free of disease after 3 to 5 years follow-up, while the patient with sarcoma arising in pregnancy, although is still alive, developed lung metastases four years after surgery.ConclusionsThe first and most important therapeutic approach to primary sarcomas of the breast is surgical which has the purpose to achieve radical tumor excision to prevent local recurrence and skip metastases. However, given the rarity of the condition and the consequent small number of cases in this, like in similar studies, it is not possible to draw any definitive conclusions and further studies with larger numbers are necessary. However it would appear that performing a larger procedure such as mastectomy rather than performing a more limited one such as a quadrantectomy, has no advantage in terms of overall prognosis.

Mondor's disease is an unusual and little-known pathology of the breast, characterized by superficial thrombophlebitis. The causes are still unresolved. Most of the patients do not fall under case studies of the scientific literature, given the reported incidence rate between 0.5% and 0.8%. The Mondor's disease patients are not always properly identified, and they are frequently treated as outpatients, even considering the benign course of the disease which often spontaneously resolves without any medical therapy. We report here six new cases of Mondor's disease, two of them were likely due to a trauma and were easily resolved with the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; the third one was apparently due to the stretching of the mammary veins in a patient with gigantomastia; the fourth one was subsequent to hormonal stimulation for in vivo fertilization and following gestation; and the last two cases (one was a man) were diagnosed after undergoing surgery for breast carcinoma.

Breast chondrosarcoma is a rare sarcoma that mainly occurs in females >50 years old. To the best of our knowledge, only 16 cases were reported in the literature prior to 2013 and all patients were surgically treated by mastectomy, with or without lymphadenectomy, which was occasionally preceded by neoadjuvant chemotherapy. However, the literature does not report the benefit of mastectomy compared with a more conservative surgery. The present study reports a novel case of extraskeletal chondrosarcoma of the breast. A 63-year-old female patient presented with a neoplasm localized in the upper-outer quadrant of the right breast. The palpable lesion with sharp margins was a firm parenchymatous mass, which was confirmed by ultrasonography and mammography. The patient underwent conservative quadrantectomy instead of mastectomy, followed by post-surgical chemotherapy. A positron emission tomography scan performed five months subsequent to the surgery revealed no remnants of the disease. The patient underwent a strict clinical and instrumental follow-up, and two and half years after surgery, there are no signs of recurrent disease. In conclusion, the present case is currently one of the two cases in which a more conservative quadrantectomy was performed, instead of mastectomy. This surgical approach did not lead to metastasis and resulted in a good follow-up for the patient.