Breast syphilis
Breast syphilis is an infectious, specific, rarely occurring venereal disease that belongs to the group of sexually transmitted diseases. The disease proceeds for a long time and affects the body systemically. Syphilis is caused by pale spirochete (treponema), it manifests itself in three stages of mammary gland damage. Through the slightest microcracks on the cover of the mammary gland, the pathogen easily penetrates, multiplies and diverges throughout the body. At any stage of the disease, the patient is contagious, especially if there are skin manifestations. Men do not get infected with this type of syphilis.
The content of the article:
Causes of breast syphilis
Symptoms of breast syphilis
Diagnosis of breast syphilis
Treatment of breast syphilis
Prevention and prognosis of breast syphilis
Breast syphilis
Causes of breast syphilis
The main way of infection with breast syphilis is sexual contact with an infected person, you can also get infected from a child infected with syphilis while breastfeeding. By wearing someone else’s unwashed clothes or using personal hygiene items, a woman increases the risk of infection several times. After all, a pale spirochete in a moist, warm environment remains viable for another 4 days, even if it is outside the human body, therefore, if the skin on the mammary gland is damaged, the probability of infection is quite high.
Symptoms of breast syphilis
At each stage of development, syphilis is characterized by different manifestations. During the incubation period, which lasts about a month, the disease behaves covertly. At the primary stage, in the place where the introduction of the microorganism turned out, usually it is a nipple-areolar complex, redness appears, then the formation of a solid chancre in the form of ulcerative erosion. This is considered a clinical symptom of the first stage of syphilis. The chancre has a rounded, well-defined shape, a shiny red-cyanotic bottom and a painless dense infiltrate. Its dimensions can vary from 2mm to 5 cm, there may be as many ulcers as there were wounds on the mammary gland. Lymph nodes are gradually increasing, especially those close to the source of infection. Although they are enlarged, they are painless, ulcers heal without treatment, the disease subsides, but does not go away.
At the second stage of syphilis, lasting from 2 to 5 years, symptoms of a cold or flu appear: often a headache, malaise, fever, patients lose weight, appetite worsens.
This stage is characterized by cyclical pink polymorphic rashes (papules, roseoles, pustules) on the chest and throughout the body, skin modifications, scaly spots or ulceration, hair may fall out all over the body. The nervous system and internal organs are affected. At this stage, the damage to the epidermis is highly contagious.
A few years after the onset of the disease, the third, slightly contagious stage of syphilis occurs, during which disfigurement occurs, damage to the spinal cord and brain, severe mental illness, paralysis, complete blindness, multiple organ failure may follow. The mammary gland itself in the tertiary stage is affected in a gummous form or resembling chronic mastitis, as a diffuse infiltration of the gland. Gumma usually appears near the nipple of the breast and feels like a dense, slightly painful knot, the size of a walnut. If purulent melting of gum occurs, it breaks through and the formation of a painless syphilitic ulcer is obtained, which resembles a lesion in tuberculosis or breast cancer. The tertiary stage of breast syphilis occurs if not treated for several years after infection, it is the most severe and irreversible stage, leading the patient to disfigurement and disability.
Diagnosis of breast syphilis
To make an accurate diagnosis, it is necessary to examine a mammologist and a venereologist, collect anamnesis and the results of laboratory tests. First of all, a serological study of the presence of syphilis in the blood is carried out. If there are lesions on the skin of the breast in the form of erosive ulcers, pustules, vesicles, microscopic examination of specific elements is carried out to identify the pathogen and exclude tuberculosis or actinomycosis of the breast. A smear print and a biopsy from the edge of the ulcer give a cytological and histological conclusion in order to exclude breast cancer. Conducting studies using ultrasound, MRI and mammography will be non-specific for breast syphilis.
Treatment of breast syphilis
Modern medicine successfully treats syphilis, including on the mammary gland. But the main thing is to consult a doctor in time, since the advanced stage of the disease will not allow a woman to remain completely healthy, since the processes of damage are irreversible. In addition to taking prescribed medications, a woman will have to listen to the doctor’s recommendations: lead a certain lifestyle, exclude sexual intercourse, alcohol consumption, breast-feeding a child for a while. It is necessary to conduct a survey of sexual partners and family members. A woman is considered fully recovered if, for five years after treatment, tests for the presence of the causative agent of treponema in the body were negative.
Breast syphilis is a curable disease, but the duration of therapy depends on the stage. Complex treatment is carried out by a course, dermatovenerologist appointments are strictly individual, doctor’s supervision and clinical and serological tests are mandatory until full recovery. For the treatment of breast syphilis, penicillin group antibiotics, erythromycin, tetracyclines, cephalosporins are prescribed. In addition, anti-syphilitic drugs with iodine and bismuth, biogenic stimulants, immunomodulators are used.
Prevention and prognosis of breast syphilis
For preventive purposes, you can not use shared bath accessories, use someone else’s clothes without washing them beforehand, and prevent accidental sexual relations. If there is a need to breastfeed someone else’s baby, it is better not to breastfeed, but to express the milk necessary for feeding into a bottle. In the event that the mother herself is undergoing treatment, is it possible to breastfeed the baby — this question is considered very relevant. Usually, the child is isolated from the mother until the baby’s mother’s disease is confirmed. However, this should not be done, since treponema has already been transmitted to the child through the placental bloodstream, which means that he has already been infected from his mother and needs treatment. Therefore, you should not deprive him of additional immunity, which the baby receives through his mother’s milk.
After contact with a sick person with syphilis, preventive treatment and treatment with bactericidal agents of areas of possible infection, including the breast, is mandatory.
The prognosis for the treatment of breast syphilis will be favorable provided timely and correct treatment. Within 5 years after the therapy, patients are registered at the dispensary, regularly undergo serological diagnostics and are considered cured definitively if there are no signs of the disease for a long time.
