The risk factors of idiopathic granulomatous mastitis: A review study

Idiopathic granulomatous mastitis is a rare chronic inflammatory disease of the breast with unknown causes. Despite of developed countries, the incidence of this disease is increasing in Middle Eastern countries. The many challenges related to the etiology of this disease make it necessary to have a comprehensive study to investigate the underlying causes and achieve a better treatment; therefore, the present study was conducted with aim to investigate the underlying causes of granulomatous mastitis.

In this systematic review study, in order to find related articles, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library and Scopus databases were searched with suitable keywords including granulomatous mastitis, risk factors, and mastitis. The search was done in English language and continued from March 2021 to June 2022. The screening process of articles was done at the title, abstract and content levels, respectively. The required information of the articles with inclusion criteria was extracted and entered into the SPSS software, and finally the results were interpreted according to the general conditions of the study.

A total of 71 articles with a total sample size of 4735 patients were included in the study. The mean age of the patients was 34.98 ± 8.46 years. In terms of race, 3749 (79.17%) of these patients were Caucasian. Also, 3251 (91.47%) of the patients mentioned a history of pregnancy and 2721 (83.67%) a history of breastfeeding. The history of taking contraceptive pills (22.79%), smoking (13.88%), trauma (5.7%) and high prolactin tests (19.7%) were also measured.

According to the results of this study, Caucasian race, history of pregnancy and breastfeeding, and the use of contraceptive hormones are the most factors related to this disease.