[Lymphocytic infiltrations of the nipple. The benign cutaneous lymphocytoma of the breast areola (author's transl)].

Benign lymphocytic infiltrations may often occur in the skin of nipple and areola: 55 cases have been described in literature especially in Scandinavia and in Germany, sometimes in correlation with tick bites or erythema chronicum migrans, but until now no cases have been reported in France. In a retrospective study of 30 cutaneous lymphocytomas, we found 8 cases localized on the breast-3 children and 5 older patients-, associated with a erythema chronicum migrans in 3 patients and following a tick bite in another patient. The course of the disease is always benign and the healing can be accelerated by penicillin therapy. The pathogenesis still remains unclear but some data argue for an infectious mechanism: frequency of tick bites (20 p. 10), geographical occurrence in the spreading area of common ticks in Europe, affinity of ticks for the breast in all mammals, carriage of viruses by some tick species, efficiency of penicillin in tick-transmitted viral infectious and in benign skin lymphocytomas, positive inoculations in volunteers, general course of an infectious disease (seasonal variations, frequency of satellite lymph-node swelling, spontaneous healing).