Catherine N. Chinyama

2014

Radiology – Pathology – Risk
Assessment

The majority of textbooks on breast disease understandably concentrate on cancer and related prognostic factors, with minimal space devoted to benign conditions. With widespread use of screening mammography and improvements in imaging equipment, smaller and smaller cancers are being detected. This has also resulted in detection of indeterminate micro-calcification and soft tissue densities, which invariably leads to diagnostic fine needle aspiration cytology or needle core biopsy. Although most of the mammographically indeterminate lesions are benign, biopsies also detect potentially malignant lesions, which include atypical hyperplasias, lesions of undetermined malignant potential such as columnar cell change and other epithelial proliferations.