Breast lumps overview
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Breast lumps Microchapters |
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Diagnosis |
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Treatment |
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Case Studies |
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Breast lumps overview On the Web |
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American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Breast lumps overview |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Shadan Mehraban, M.D.[2]
Overview
Breast lumps are considered as one of the prevalent symptoms among women. Breast lumps can be found by individuals or clinical breast examination. Although, breast lumps are often determined as benign masses, they could be the first common presentation of breast cancer and require more clinical and imaging studies and medical interventions. Benign breast disease includes wide range of lesions which originate from either mammary epithelium or other mammary tissues. Breast lumps may be related to vascular, inflammatory or traumatic pathologies. Breast lumps are usually palpable, nodular masses and could be associated with or without particular characteristics. Breast lumps could also be found in children, adolescents and hopefully they are considered as benign tumors.The first step for evaluation of breast lumps is clinical examination then if examination was suspicious later imaging studies such as mammography, ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging are required for further evaluation. Breast lumps management depends on disease pattern, available facilities and specialist.
Historical Perspective
Throughout the history many women experienced breast diseases but there were not any courage to express their problem to the public. In 1970s, all women with malignant breast lumps underwent radical mastectomy rather than performing previous biopsies. Although fine needle aspiration biopsy was introduce in 1930, it was used for breast lumps in 1950s. Breast ultrasound was used in 1950s and mammography was found in 1975 to diagnose early stages of breast cancers.