{"id":180,"date":"2025-06-03T20:53:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T20:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/?p=180"},"modified":"2025-06-30T10:21:44","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T18:21:44","slug":"case-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"Case 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contributed by: Steven J. Rockoff, MD and Diana L. Lam, MD – June 1, 2020<\/p>\n

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Question 1<\/h2>\n
\n

A 67-year-old woman presents for a screening mammogram:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

Representative magnified images are shown here:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

What is the dominant type of calcification that is present bilaterally?<\/p>\n

A. Fine pleomorphic calcifications
B. Large rod-like calcifications
C. Vascular calcifications
D. Fine-linear branching calcifications
E. Skin calcifications<\/p>\n

\n

Answer<\/h3>\n
\n

B. Large rod-like calcifications<\/strong><\/p>\n

Explanation: <\/strong>Large rod-like calcifications, also known as secretory calcifications, are benign calcifications associated with duct ectasia and are almost exclusively seen in post-menopausal women. They are often present in a bilateral diffuse distribution, as seen here. Large rod-like calcifications are thicker and larger than the similar-appearing fine linear or fine-linear branching calcifications, which are considered suspicious.<\/p>\n

Note the difference between the large rod-like calcifications and the patient\u2019s separate vascular calcifications shown here:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

Also note the far posterior intramammary lymph node in the left image.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributed by: Steven J. Rockoff, MD and Diana L. Lam, MD – June 1, 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/breast-imaging-teach\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}