Sewing needle in breast: mammography and ultrasonography findings.

The most common foreign bodies in the breast are surgical clips and fragments of localization hookwires [1]. Pieces of glass, lead shot and other metallic objects have also been reported. Mammography is often useful in the diagnosis of these metallic foreign bodies within the breast. Montrey et al. [2] reported the frequency of retained wire fragments to be 0.2%. Some studies reported possible wire migration to the chest wall, pleural and abdominal cavities. For the excision of non-palpable breast lesions, wire-guided localization is the standard procedure. A 70-year-old female who presented with swelling in the left breast, had palpable mass in her left breast at physical examination. She did not have a history of surgery or trauma owing to her left breast. She does not remember any interaction with any foreign body either. Her right breast was mastectomized because of invasive ductal carcinoma. Screening mammography detected lineer dens structure in the upper lateral quadrant of the left breast (Fig. 1). Ecogenic lineer structure was demonstrated at the same localization on ultrasonography (Fig. 2). The sewing needle was extracted surgically. Foreign body in the breast may be asymptomatic like our case and it can be detected incidentally. Cases of migrating needles in any part of the body might stay asymptomatic for a long time, or might be found through symptoms related to toxic and allergic reac-