What causes armpit hypertrophy?

The human body's lymphatic system is spread throughout the body, and there are many lymph nodes under our armpits. I believe everyone knows that it is a very important immune organ in the human body. It can produce antibodies and participate in the human immune process, so it can play a protective role on our body. We must pay attention to lymph node hypertrophy. So what is the matter with your armpit hypertrophy? Let's find out the specific reasons.

Generally, lymphadenopathy is divided into two categories: acute and chronic according to the course of the disease.

Acute lymphadenopathy is mostly caused by infection by various pathogens, often accompanied by other symptoms such as fever. The clinical manifestations are relatively typical. Inflammatory lymphadenopathy is often accompanied by redness, swelling and burning sensation of the epidermis. If suppuration occurs, there may be a sense of fluctuation. Such as axillary lymph node enlargement caused by acute mastitis, upper limb trauma or its infectious diseases, acute simple lymphadenitis, viral infection, allergic diseases (drug fever, serum fever), etc. Chronic swelling is mostly seen in lymph node tuberculosis, connective tissue disease and tumorous lymph node enlargement.

Common causes of chronic lymphadenopathy include: chronic infectious lymphadenopathy (nonspecific chronic lymphadenitis, lymphadenopathy, filariasis, kala-azar, syphilis), connective tissue diseases (systemic lupus erythematosus, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis), tumorous lymphadenopathy (malignant lymphoma, malignant histiocytosis, leukemia, metastasis of malignant tumors in local lymph nodes), and lymphadenopathy of unknown cause.

Lymph node enlargement caused by acute infection has obvious tenderness and spontaneous pain because the lymph nodes enlarge rapidly in a short period of time. In contrast, tumorous lymphadenopathy is usually painless except for its rapid growth. Tumorous lymph node enlargement is often hard in texture. If the tumor tissue penetrates the lymph node capsule, it may invade adjacent lymph nodes and surrounding tissues, causing the lymph nodes to adhere to each other or to adhere and fix to the surrounding tissues.

There are three causes of swollen axillary lymph nodes: infection, tumor and other factors. Neoplastic diseases include primary tumors of the lymphatic system and metastatic tumors of the lymph nodes. Non-neoplastic diseases include infection, allergy, connective tissue disease, etc. When clinicians encounter symptoms of chronic axillary lymphadenopathy, they may first conduct a comprehensive breast examination to see if there are also abnormalities such as lumps, discharge, etc. The possibility of breast cancer should be ruled out first. Because clinically occult breast cancer sometimes only manifests as enlarged axillary lymph nodes, it is often easily overlooked. Clinically, it may be necessary to rule out other causes such as lymph node metastasis to other organs, lymphoma, lymph node tuberculosis, leukemia, etc. For those with unknown causes, surgical biopsy is generally recommended to clarify the pathology.