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Large Axillary Lymph Node Overview

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The next finding as a potential

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recall from screening mammography

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is large axillary lymph nodes.

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And we, we always look at the axillary lymph

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nodes that are available to us on a screening

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mammogram and compare those to prior mammograms.

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And if they're increased from

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the prior mammogram or they're

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quite large on a baseline mammogram,

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we will recall that patient and will

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usually recall for an axillary ultrasound.

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There are lots of reasons for axillary adenopathy,

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including things like leukemia and lymphoma

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and breast cancer metastases, as well as mets

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from other primary malignancies, but then also

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infectious and inflammatory considerations like

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HIV, rheumatoid arthritis, other autoimmune

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diseases such as scleroderma, dermatomyositis

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and Sjogren's disease, some skin diseases

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like eczema and psoriasis, skin infections

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or inflammations such as rashes, poison ivy,

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cat scratch disease, hidradenitis suppurativa.

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Um, and then there's a large

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group of patients who may have had

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vaccination in recent weeks or months.

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And that includes.

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COVID-19 vaccine, influenza vaccine,

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Pneumovax, shingles vaccine, um, all of

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those can cause a pretty prominent immune

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response and enlargement of the lymph nodes.

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And the most recent one of these that

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we've really been seeing in sort of a mass

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vaccination campaign is the COVID-19 vaccine.

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So we've, you know, done a lot of work

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on this since we first started noticing

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large lymph nodes in January, 2021.

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And, um, you know, our guidelines and

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evaluation of this have evolved over

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time as we get more information about it.

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But all of those vaccines can

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make the lymph nodes large.

Report

Faculty

Lisa Ann Mullen, MD

Assistant Professor; Breast Imaging Fellowship Director

Johns Hopkins Medicine

Tags

Women's Health

Ultrasound

Tomosynthesis

Non-infectious Inflammatory

Neoplastic

Mammography

Breast

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