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Background: We aimed to investigate the role of surgical excision in treating granulomatous lobular mastitis.Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review of patients with granulomatous lobular mastitis treated from March 2008 to March 2014. We analyzed clinical features and therapeutic modalities and compared the patient outcomes based on treatment.Results: During the study period, a total of 34 patients were diagnosed with granulomatous lobular mastitis and treated. Initial treatments included wide excision (18), oral steroids after incision and drainage (14), and antibiotic therapy (2). The patients receiving only antibiotic therapy showed no improvement after 1 month and wide excision was then performed. Wide excision resulted in nine case of delayed wound healing with fistula. These patients were treated with oral steroids for 1.5-5 months, with subsequent improvement. Overall, 11 out of 20 patients who had underwent wide excision showed improvement without additional treatment. Fourteen patients who had initially received oral steroids for 1 to 6 months (average, 2.8 months) after incision and drainage showed complete remission. During the median follow-up period with 45.5 months (range, 22-98 months), six patients (17.6%) experienced recurrence. Wide excision group experienced recurrence in five (25%) and steroid and drainage group experienced recurrence in one (7.1%). All six recurrences responded to additional steroid therapy for average 3.5 months. Most wide excision group left extensive breast scarring with deformation that was not in steroid and drainage group.Conclusions: Wide excision resulted high recurrence than steroid and drainage group and left extensive scarring. Steroid therapy with or without abscess drainage may be the first choice of treatment for majority cases with granulomatous lobular mastitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pain is common during cancer treatment, and patient self-reporting of pain is an essential first step for ideal cancer pain management. However, many studies on cancer pain management report that, because pain may be underestimated, it is often inadequately managed. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of bedside self-assessment of pain intensity for inpatients using a self-reporting pain board. Methods: Fifty consecutive inpatients admitted to the Oncology Department of Chungbuk National University Hospital were included in this observational prospective study from February 2011 to December 2011. The medical staff performed pain assessments by asking patients questions and using verbal rated scales (VRS) over 3 consecutive days. Then, for 3 additional days, patients used a self-reporting pain board attached to the bed, which had movable indicators representing 0-10 on a numeric rating scale (NRS) and the frequency of breakthrough pain. Results: Patient reliability over the medical staff's pain assessment increased from 74% to 96% after applying the self-reporting pain board ( p=0.004). The gap (mean±standard deviation [SD]) between the NRS reported by patients and the NRS recorded on the medical records decreased from 3.16±2.08 to 1.00±1.02 ( p<0.001), and the level of patient satisfaction with pain management increased from 54% to 82% ( p=0.002). Conclusion: This study suggests that the self-reporting bedside pain assessment tool provides a reliable and effective means of assessing pain in oncology inpatients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]