Benign Lesions of the Breast

Abstract

• Benign breast diseases come to attention as imaging abnormality or as clinical symptom or as incidental pathological finding. Since most breast discoveries are benign, any new symptom can cause a natural anxiety that leads women to fear the worst. • For benign breast diseases, clinical classifications should be abandoned in favour of a simpler and comprehensive classification based on three histological categories: nonproliferative lesions, proliferative lesions without atypia and proliferative lesions with atypia. • Most benign breast disorders derive from minor aberrations of the normal processes of development, cyclical activity and involution. • Diagnostic assessment of benign lesions is planned to rule out cancer or associated high-risk lesions. Surgery of benign lesions is aimed at symptomatic relief. A good part of treatment is patient information and education.

Future directions. In the clinical practice, benign breast diseases represent a mostly negligible risk factor for BC. However, various studies demonstrate variability among the actual degree of risk, depending on whether lesions are proliferative and nonproliferative, with and without atypia, more or less associated with family history. The potential for research in benign breast diseases is endless. Studies on the link between benign breast disease and BC may help in discovering one of the many causes of BC.