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Back to Oncology Articles
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A Mayo Clinic study shows women with benign breast disease have a higher risk
for breast cancer.
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ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A study led by Mayo Clinic Cancer Center adds
evidence to a growing body of knowledge that shows women with benign
breast disease have a higher risk for breast cancer, and that certain
types of breast disease may predict the near-term development of breast
cancer. The findings will be published in the July 21 issue of The
New England Journal of Medicine.
"Our findings indicate a link between select types of benign breast
lesions and the later development of
breast cancer," says Lynn Hartmann, M.D., Mayo Clinic oncologist and
lead investigator of the study. "Women who have a breast biopsy that is
benign must discuss the possibility of
additional risks with
their doctors."
Benign breast disease refers to any lumps or mammographically-detected
abnormalities that have been biopsied and found to not contain cancerous
cells. Each year in the United States it is estimated that more than 1
million women have a breast biopsy with benign findings, and Dr.
Hartmann encourages clinicians to look more closely at the type of
lesions they find. The Mayo team is evaluating various possible risk
factors for a later breast cancer,
including age at benign biopsy,
family history of
breast cancer and the pathologic
findings of the benign lesion. "Our goal is to do a better job of risk
prediction for women with various types of benign breast conditions,"
says Dr. Hartmann.
Dr. Hartmann and her co-investigators were heartened to
find convincing evidence that women with the most common, non-proliferative
forms of benign findings had no increased risk of developing
breast cancer -- as long as they
did not have a strong family
history of breast cancer.
However, for proliferative and atypical types, the opposite was true,
and these lesions pointed to an increased risk of a future
breast cancer, even when the
family history of
breast cancer was negative. Dr.
Hartmann and her colleagues say continued studies of this kind are
necessary to help understand the process of
breast cancer development.
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The study population of 9,087 women was drawn from the Mayo Clinic
Surgical and Pathology Indices, identifying women ages 18 to 85, who had
a biopsy of a benign breast lesion during a 25-year period from Jan. 1,
1967, through Dec. 31, 1991. Family histories were obtained at time of
follow-up and from Mayo medical record questionnaires.
All benign breast samples were evaluated by a breast pathologist
unaware of initial diagnoses or patient outcomes and assigned to one of
three categories of benign breast lesions -- non-proliferative,
proliferative and atypical. This information was used to link the risk
of subsequent development of breast
cancer to specific types of lesions.
In addition to Dr. Hartmann, members of the Mayo Clinic research team
included Marlene Frost, Ph.D., Wilma Lingle, Ph.D., Amy Degnim, M.D.,
Karthik Ghosh, M.D., Robert Vierkant, Shaun Maloney, V. Shane Pankratz,
Ph.D., David Hillman, Vera Suman, Ph.D., Jo Johnson, Celine Vachon,
Ph.D., L. Joseph Melton III, M.D., and Daniel Visscher, M.D. They were
joined by Thomas Sellers, Ph.D., H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and
Research Institute, Tampa, Fla.; Cassann Blake, M.D., Wayne State
University, Detroit; and Thea Tlsty, Ph.D., University of California,
San Francisco.
###
The Department of Defense and National Cancer Institute funded this
study with additional support from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer
Foundation, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the Andersen
Foundation.
The Mayo Clinic.
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