While doing your regular breast self-examamination of youe breasts, you may feel a breast fibroadenoma. Women sometimes refer to them as “breast mice” because they tend to run away from fingers while examening the breast.
Fibroadenomas of the breast, are lumps composed of fibrous and glandular tissue. Because breast cancer can also appear as a lump, doctors may recommend a tissue sample (biopsy) to rule out cancer in older patients. Unlike typical lumps from breast cancer, fibroadenomasare easy to move, with clearly defined edges.
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| Ultrasound appearance of the mass which is oval, measured about 10 x 5 mm. and showed smooth margins which were well defined. The lesion was non-calcific and seemed extremely mobile on probe pressure. |
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| Power Doppler image shows poor vascularity of the lesion. |
The typical case is the presence of a painless, non-tender although may get tender especially right before the menstrual period, when it may swell due to hormonal changes, firm, solitary, freely mobile, slowly growing lump in the breast of a woman of childbearing years. A fibroadenoma is usually diagnosed through clinical examination, ultrasound or mammography, and often a needle biopsy sample of the lump may be recommended.
Fibroadenomas arise in the terminal duct lobular unit of the breast. They are the most common breast tumor in adolescent women. They also occur in a small number of post-menopausal women. Their incidence declines with increasing age, and, in general, they appear before the age of thirty years. Fibroadenomas are partially hormone-dependent and frequently regress after menopause. They are hypovascular compared to typical (especially malignant) neoplasms.
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