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Int J Angiol 2000; 9(2): 74-77
DOI: 10.1007/BF01617044
Original Articles

© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

Breast hematoma complicating thrombolytic therapy

Malka Yahalom, Nathan Roguin, Amitai Bickel1 , Hector I. Cohen2
  • 1Pacemaker Unit, Cardiology Department and Heart Institute, Departments of Surgery Western Galilee Hospital Nahariya, and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
  • 2Pacemaker Unit, Cardiology Department and Heart Institute, Departments of Pathology Western Galilee Hospital Nahariya, and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Presented in part at the 40th Annual World Congress, International College of Angiology, Lisbon, Portugal, July 1998.
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Publication History

Publication Date:
24 April 2011 (online)

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Abstract

Thrombolytic therapy (TT) is now established as the main treatment of acute myocardial infarction (MI). Spontaneous breast hematoma, usually a rare complication of anticoagulant therapy, has been described in the last five decades, but not after thrombolytic therapy. We present three patients who developed the rare complication of breast hematoma after TT, out of 495 women treated with TT in ICCU in our hospital, because of acute MI in the last 12 years. One patient needed blood transfusion and in another patient, atypical ductal nuclei were observed in fine needle aspiration (FNA) of breast hematoma, needing further evaluation. As thrombolytic therapy becomes more wide-spread and essential in treating patients suffering acute occlusion of coronary, retinal, pulmonary or peripheral arteries, it is expected that more women will present with breast hematoma following such treatment.

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