Abstract

Cancer of many organs may first manifest itself by regional lymph node metastasis. Examples include cervical nodes from the upper respiratory tract, supraclavicular nodes from the gastrointestinal tract and axillary nodes from the breast. Occult breast cancer presenting as an axillary lymph node is rare disease. Recently, authors experienced two cases of occult breast cancer presenting an an axillary lymph node. One patient was 40 year old female, and treated with left axillary lymph node dissection, radiation therapy to left breast and combination chemotherapy. She had 27 positive out of 31 axillary lymph node and was free of disease for 35 months. The other patient was 44 year old female, undertaken same management of right axilla and breast as the above patient. She had all 12 positive axillary lymph node, but developed breast cancer in the ipsilateral breast 6 months later and died from metastatic breast cancer 16 months after surgery. We reported two cases of occult breast cancer.presenting as an axillary lymph node with review of literature.

• Keywords: Occult breast cancer