Myoid Hamartomas of the Breast Report of 3 Cases and Review of the Literature

Hamartomas were first described by Albrecht in 1904 as tumor-like malformations in which there was abnormal blending of normal components of the organ. In 1971 Arrigoni et al [1] proposed this term for a well-circumscribed breast lesion charac-terized by a mixture of benign mammary elements. These may have alteration in the proportion of the components, disorderly arrangement, and/or im-perfect differentiation [2]. The first description of mammary hamartoma with clinical, radiologic, and pathologic correlation of their findings was by Hogeman and Osberg [3]. Because of the admixture of the myoid component with fibrous and adipose tissue these lesions can be qualified as hamartomas [4]. The myoid (muscular) hamartoma is a rare be-nign lesion of the breast and is considered a variant of mammary hamartoma [2]. It has an uncertain origin, possibly in the walls of blood vessels, muscu-laris mammillae of areolae, and mainly in the my-oepithelium. Mammary hamartomas usually pre-sent as a palpable, sometimes tender, lump lesion, with a mammographic feature of a well-defined variable dense mass [5]. We report 3 cases of mus-cular hamartomas that presented as mammary lumps with high density at mammography (Birads III). In 2 cases the clinical hypotheses were of fi-broadenomas. Materials and Methods We have received the product of three core nee-dle biopsies of women aged 47 (Fig. 1), 54 (Fig. 2), and 52 (Figs. 3 and 4) years, presented as well-cir-cumscribed lumps with high densities at mammo-graphies that measured 1.8 × 0.2 × 0.2 cm, 1.5 × 0.