Sonography is rarely used to evaluate the breasts in patients who have undergone liquid silicone injections for breast augmentation because strong acoustic shadowing from the resulting silicone granulomas hampers the examination. We report on 2 patients who underwent silicone injection 18 and 20 years earlier and in whom breast cancers (1 invasive ductal carcinoma and 1 carcinosarcoma) were diagnosed by sonographically guided core-needle biopsy. On sonograms, both cancers had a peripheral hypoechoic rim surrounding an echogenic center. The echogenic center corresponded histologically to a silicone granuloma in 1 patient and to a large area of necrosis in the other; the hypoechoic rims corresponded to areas of cancer in both patients.
Copyright 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Ultrasound 30: 548-551, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jcu.10110