Surgical Intervention for Refractory Granulomatous Lobular Mastitis

Granulomatous lobular mastitis (GLM) belongs to a group of benign diseases, which is mainly treated with glucocorticoids and surgical treatment. Nowadays, in China, surgical treatment has gradually become the mainstream, but the timing and the extent of surgery are still controversial, and different literatures report that the recurrence rate after surgery is 20-50%. Empirical lesion resection is generally used. We believe that the main reason for the high recurrence rate is the incomplete removal of the breast lesions. Because GLM is often characterized with microabscesses formation, empirical resection is likely to have residual lesions that are not visible to the naked eye. In order to reduce the postoperative recurrence rate and protect the breast appearance as much as possible, we propose a surgical plan : granulomatous lobular mastitis "lesion removal + whole breast exploration and flushing + one-stage microplastic surgery". The purpose of this study was to compare this surgical scheme of granulomatous lobular mastitis with existing surgical schemes, and to compare the overall benefits of the two for patients with GLM. We aim to protect the breast appearance on the premise of low recurrence, improve the quality of life of GLM patients, and standardize GLM surgical schemes.