How is benign breast disease (BBD) diagnosed, and how common is it?
Benign breast disease is usually diagnosed after a patient has had a biopsy following an abnormal mammogram or MRI. More than 700,000 new cases of BBD are diagnosed each year, and most of them are just as the name suggests – benign. A diagnosis of BBD is more than three times more common than breast cancer. However, 30 percent of BBD cases are associated with an increased risk for future breast cancer. How do you know if you’re part of the 70 percent with harmless changes or if you’re part of the 30 percent who have an increased risk of breast cancer? Women diagnosed with BBD because of fibroadenomas and cysts – the most common forms of BBD – do not have an increased risk for breast cancer. In fact, both of these findings are not thought to be related to breast cancer. Roughly 26 percent of women diagnosed with BBD, however, are diagnosed with other conditions such as sclerosing adenosis, intraductal papillomas or hyperplasia, which are all associated with a mildly increased risk for b
