Migration of silicone gel to axillary lymph nodes after prosthetic mammoplasty.

Foreign-body reaction to material optically resembling silicone gel was evident in an axillary lymph node of a patient eight years after subcutaneous mastectomy for fibrocystic disease and breast reconstruction with a silicone gel-filled prosthesis. The lymph nodes. was removed as a component of a radical mastectomy for adenocarcinoma and Paget's disease of the nipple that had developed in the residual breast tissue and preserved nipple. Silicone gel may "bleed" through a structurally intact prosthetic envelope and subsequently migrate to regional lymph nodes