Fibrocystic Disease Essay

1. Fibrocystic disease

Fibrocystic disease is one of the most common benign breast lesions.
The breast tissue in response of imbalanced estrogen and progesterone stimulation over time undergoes a various morphologic changes of fibrocystic disease.
The peak incidence is between 35 and 50 years of age and it is rare before 25 years.
The term embraces a spectrum of histologic changes, and may encompass many patients who have cystic lesions detected clinically or sclerotic breast lesions detected on mammography.
Histologically it is characterized by overgrowth of both fibrous stroma, and of epithelial elements i.e. ducts and lobules, in differing proportions.
These changes may be considered as aberrations of normal breast involution and not part of a disease process.
The cyst lining may be flattened, or shows apocrine metaplasia and epithelial hyperplasia (5, 8).
Apocrine metaplasia is characterized by abundant granular eosinophilic cytoplasm with apical snouts.
Stromal fibrosis is also a common finding (5).
Epithelial hyperplasia whether typical or atypical may be occurred in fibrocystic disease and put the patient in a higher risk of cancer development especially in patients accompanied by atypical ductal hyperplasia (Figure 1A &B) (4, 5, 6, 7).
Other rare morphologic variations include calcification and fibroadenoma-like picture, so called fibroadenomatoid mastopathy (9).
In most cases, symptoms of fibrocystic changes include breast pain and tender lumps or thickened areas in the breasts.
These symptoms may change as the woman moves through different stages of the menstrual