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Breast Conditions

Breast Conditions

The clinical team of The Hoffberger Breast Center has the knowledge and experience to address breast cancer as well as an array of breast conditions including:

Breast Pain

Pain in the breast is a problem that many women experience and it is usually benign. General cyclical pain is usually benign and hormone-related. Another common cause of breast pain is cysts. For some patients caffeine worsens breast pain.

While breast cancers are usually painless, they can cause pain – usually a dull pain. It is important to contact a physician if you experience constant localized pain that persists after a cycle, especially if it is associated with a lump.

Breast Lumps

Women have a natural lumpiness to their breasts. It is recommended that you perform breast self-exams on a regular basis so that you become familiar with the normal lumpiness of your breasts and can differentiate any new lumps.

Contact a breast specialist or your primary care physician if the lump does not go away during or after your cycle, or if you are post-menopausal and you feel a lump.

Not all lumps are cancerous. After feeling a lump, your doctor may order additional screenings and/or a biopsy to determine if a lump is malignant (cancerous) or benign (non-cancerous).

Breast Calcifications

Calcifications are small calcium deposits in the breast that can be detected by a mammogram. Calcifications are divided into two categories. They are the following:

Macrocalcifications
Macrocalcifications are coarse deposits that most likely represent degenerative changes in the breast such as aging of the breast arteries, old injuries or inflammations. These deposits are almost always associated with non-cancerous conditions and do not require a biopsy. Macrocalcifications are found in about 50 percent of women over the age of 50 and in about 10 percent of women under the age of 50.

Microcalicifations
Microcalcifications are tiny specks of calcium in the breast. When many of these tiny specks are seen in one area, it is referred to as a cluster and may indicate a small cancer, but many times is benign (non-cancerous). If microcalcifications are detected in your mammogram, your physician may schedule a follow up mammogram in six months to see if there has been any change. In other cases a biopsy may be recommended. Most of the time these biopsies are benign, however, if cancer is present it is often found at an early stage when it is most curable.

Nipple Discharge

Most women, in all stages of life, experience a small amount of discharge from their nipples upon squeezing the breast. It is normal to experience a small amount of nipple discharge that varies in color from white, yellow, green to brown. You should call your physician when the discharge is a large amount, spontaneous, clear or bloody.

Nipple discharge is often due to a benign growth from the lining of the ducts in the breasts, but in about 10% of cases is due to a malignant growth and requires further work-up.  To diagnose the cause of nipple discharge, your physician will likely order a mammogram or sonogram. If no abnormalities are found on these reports, your doctor may perform a ductoscopy, to aid with identifying the position of the growth, and then remove the growth (called excision).

Cysts

Cysts are fluid-filled structures in the breast that can be large, palpable lumps or small non-palpable lumps that are seen through imaging studies. Typically, an ultrasound test is used to distinguish a lump from a cyst. Most cysts are benign and are filled with fluid or fluid with debris. There are two reasons to aspirate, or drain, a cyst. They are:

• The cyst causes pain or discomfort. Aspirating the cyst can provide long-lasting symptom relief. However, aspirating the cyst does not completely remove the cyst, only the fluid inside the cyst is removed.

• It is not clear that the cyst is benign.  A cyst can be a “complex cyst”, which means that there may be debris in the cyst. If there is debris in the cyst, your physician will aspirate the cyst in order to determine its malignancy.

Please do not assume that a newly developed lump is a cyst. If a new lump lasts longer than two to three menstrual cycles with no decrease in size, it is recommended that you see your physician.

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