Management of nipple adenomas during pregnancy: a case report

BACKGROUND

Nipple adenoma is a very uncommon, benign neoplasm that involves the nipple. A palpable mass of the nipple associated with nipple discharge and erosion or ulceration is the common clinical presentation. Generally, complete surgical excision of the nipple is the main treatment, alternative therapeutic methods such as Mohs micrographic surgery, nipple splitting enucleation, and cryotherapy can be considered. Disorders of the breast in young women are generally benign. Even if the management during pregnancy is usually conservative and surgical excision is reserved for very strong malignancy suspicion, benign lesions can cause the impossibility to breastfeed after giving birth when involving the nipple.

CASE PRESENTATION

We present the case of a 28-year-old female, who was referred to the Breast Unit of the University Hospital of Modena (Italy) in May 2020 with a 12-months history of enlargement of the left nipple with associated erythema, serohemorrhagic discharge, and pain in the left nipple region. The diagnostic assessment came out in favor of a nipple adenoma. After surgical treatment was recommended, the patient got pregnant. Taking into account the major risks of surgery during pregnancy, a multidisciplinary discussion was conducted, to consider whether to proceed with surgery or postpone it after pregnancy. Because of the volume and the position of the adenoma, the indication for surgical excision was confirmed, to allow regular lactation and breastfeeding immediately after giving birth and to avoid potential obstructive complications. Surgical excision of nipple adenoma without complete resection of the nipple was performed after her first trimester of pregnancy under local anesthesia. A histopathological examination confirmed the diagnosis. No recurrence occurred after 12 months. The patient gave birth, had no deficit in lactation, and successfully breastfed.

CONCLUSIONS

Therefore, we consider that nipple adenoma enucleation might be a safe treatment even during pregnancy. Moreover, conservative local treatment of nipple adenomas can preserve the nipple aesthetically and functionally, thus allowing regular lactation and breastfeeding in young women.

MEDTEC Students against Coronavirus: Investigating the Role of Hemostatic Genes in the Predisposition to COVID-19 Severity

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the etiologic agent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Besides virus intrinsic characteristics, the host genetic makeup is predicted to account for the extreme clinical heterogeneity of the disease, which is characterized, among other manifestations, by a derangement of hemostasis associated with thromboembolic events. To date, large-scale studies confirmed that genetic predisposition plays a role in COVID-19 severity, pinpointing several susceptibility genes, often characterized by immunologic functions. With these premises, we performed an association study of common variants in 32 hemostatic genes with COVID-19 severity. We investigated 49,845 single-nucleotide polymorphism in a cohort of 332 Italian severe COVID-19 patients and 1668 controls from the general population. The study was conducted engaging a class of students attending the second year of the MEDTEC school (a six-year program, held in collaboration between Humanitas University and the Politecnico of Milan, allowing students to gain an MD in Medicine and a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering). Thanks to their willingness to participate in the fight against the pandemic, we evidenced several suggestive hits (p < 0.001), involving the PROC, MTHFR, MTR, ADAMTS13, and THBS2 genes (top signal in PROC: chr2:127192625:G:A, OR = 2.23, 95%CI = 1.50–3.34, p = 8.77 × 10⁻⁵). The top signals in PROC, MTHFR, MTR, ADAMTS13 were instrumental for the construction of a polygenic risk score, whose distribution was significantly different between cases and controls (p = 1.62 × 10⁻⁸ for difference in median levels). Finally, a meta-analysis performed using data from the Regeneron database confirmed the contribution of the MTHFR variant chr1:11753033:G:A to the predisposition to severe COVID-19 (pooled OR = 1.21, 95%CI = 1.09–1.33, p = 4.34 × 10⁻¹⁴ in the weighted analysis).