Some women are developing swollen lumps in their breasts as a result of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to US doctors.
The lumps are in the body’s lymph nodes — a network of vessels which filters out germs — and are occuring on the same side of the chest as the arm in which the jab was administered.
Mammograms have uncovered the breast lumps following vaccination in several women, raising ‘unnecessary’ fears about breast cancer.
Based on the findings, doctors are urging women to avoid going for a mammogram for four weeks after they receive their Covid-19 vaccine.
Some women are developing swollen lumps in their breasts as a result of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to US doctors. The lumps are in the body’s lymph nodes — a network of vessels which filters out germs
Dr Devon Quasha works as a physician in Boston and found a lump in her left breast during a routine self-screen.
She subsequently scheduled a mammogram and an ultrasound to investigate.
One week before her imaging appointment she got her first Covid-19 vaccine, the Moderna jab.
Shortly after her inoculation her left arm began to hurt and then several swollen lumps appeared around her left armpit and around the collar bone on her left side.
Dr Quasha was told by her radiologist that although the breast lump was likely harmless, the swollen nodes would, under normal conditions, be concerning.
Such a discovery would normally warrant further investigation and an immediate biopsy where a small piece of tissue is removed and sent off for analysis.
But due to the recent vaccination Dr Quasha and her doctor decided to hold off on this and instead booked a follow-up ultrasound in six weeks.
Swollen lymph nodes are common after infection and a sign the immune system is fighting a foreign invader. However, swollen lymph nodes is not a known side-effect for other vaccines
Dr Connie Lehman, head of breast imaging in Massachusetts General’s department of radiology, told CNN: ‘We all started talking about it, and it was like a wildfire.
‘I cannot tell you how many women are showing nodes on mammograms and people thought it was going to be not that common.’
‘There have been some false scares and some unnecessary biopsies because people didn’t think to ask, and they assume that the node was the cancer coming back,’ she adds.
Such was the scale of the issue of biopsies being done following mammograms and ultrasounds which revealed harmless lymph node lumps brought on by the vaccine that the Society of Breast Imaging (SBI) in January urged clinicians to hold off.
Fourteen leading experts said swollen lymph nodes are only seen in around 0.03 per cent of pre-Covid mammograms. When they are detected, they are cancerous between 20 and 56 per cent of the time.
They also say swollen lymph nodes are ‘rarely reported’ after other vaccines, including HPV, the BCG jab for TB and flu jabs.
‘However, higher rates of axillary adenopathy have been reported with administration of both COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration: Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech,’ they say.
For the Moderna jab, one in nine recipients have lymph node swelling or tenderness after the first dose, rising to one in six after the second dose.
For the Pfizer jab, it is less common but lasts longer, with the swelling persisting for around ten days, whereas the lumps in Moderna patients disappear after two days.
The group of experts now urge doctors to not immediately order a biopsy and instead get information on the Covid vaccine status, when it was received and in what arm.
The advice is to schedule a routine screening done before the first jab, or between four and six weeks after the second dose. If there are lumps at either of these ties, that is cause for concern.
It also advises doctors minimise patient anxiety by saying ‘vaccines of all types can result in temporary swelling of the lymph nodes, which may be a sign that the body is making antibodies in response as intended’.
Dr Quasha told CNN says knowing her condition is not an anomaly and many other women are in a similar situation offered her reassurance.
‘The point here is that there are a number of side effects from the vaccine which are not dangerous but can sometimes increase patient anxiety,’ she said.