Women who find a benign breast lump or cyst are at double the risk of being struck by the disease in the future, research shows. And, as reported by the Mirror, an expert say they may benefit from enhanced screening.
The study of 800,000 Spanish women aged 50 to 69 were screened at least once between 1996 and 2015 and followed up until 2017 by researchers at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona. Among women with benign breast disease, around 25 out every 1,000 were diagnosed with breast cancer in the next 12 to 20 years. This compares to 15 out of every 1,000 who did not have a lump or cyst.
Study author Dr Marta Román said: “This is important. It suggests that benign breast disease is a key indicator that a woman has a higher risk of breast cancer, rather than simply being something that could develop into a cancer. In fact we often find the benign disease in one breast and then cancer develops in the other breast.
