Fat necrosis

What is fat necrosis?

Breasts are made up of lobules (milk-producing glands) and ducts (tubes that carry milk to the nipple), which are surrounded by glandular, fibrous and fatty tissue. Fat necrosis is a lump that forms as a result of damage to an area of the fatty breast tissue.

Fat necrosis is benign (non-cancerous) and does not increase the risk of developing breast cancer. It can affect women of any age.

The damage to the fatty breast tissue may have been caused by a bruise or injury to the breast, previous breast surgery (including breast reconstruction or sentinel node biopsy) or radiotherapy to the breast. Many women may not remember any specific injury

Fat necrosis feels like a firm, round lump and doesn’t usually cause any pain but some may find the area is tender or even painful. The skin around the lump may look red, bruised or dimpled. Sometimes the nipple can also be pulled in (retracted).

How is it found?

If you are a woman under 40 you’re more likely to have an ultrasound scan than a mammogram as younger women’s breast tissue is often too dense to give a clear mammogram image.

Treatment or follow up

If you’ve been told you have fat necrosis you won’t usually need any treatment or follow up. Fat necrosis often goes away by itself.

If the fat necrosis contains fluid it may be drawn off with a needle and syringe (aspirated) to relieve any discomfort

If the lump doesn’t disappear, or gets bigger, you may need to have a small operation to remove it. You may also need an operation if the biopsy hasn’t given enough information to confirm fat necrosis.

Your operation can be done using either a local or a general anaesthetic, and you may be in hospital for the day or overnight.

If you have painful fat necrosis following surgery or radiotherapy, it is common for the specialist to treat this with pain relief such as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.

 

Content last reviewed March 2012; next planned review 2013