Frequency of benign breast diseases in female patients presenting with breast lumps - a study at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore

Objective: To determine the frequency of benign breast diseases in female patients in our setup. Design: Prospective descriptive study. Place and duration of study: The study was carried on female patients presenting at surgical out door of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore during one year i.e. January 2001 to January 2002. Patients and methods: Two hundred female patients presenting with breast lumps at surgical out door of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore during one year were studied. All the patients were examined clinically with special emphasis on breast, axilla and supra clavicular fossae. Basic laboratory investigations including blood complete examination, urine complete examination and chest X -ray were done for all the patients. Breast imaging and FNAC of lumps were also done. Final diagnosis was based upon histological examination of the tissues biopsied from the lump. After collecting data, written in proforma, window SPSS software was used to analyze the results. Results: This study shows a high f requency of fibroadenoma (45%) in Pakistani females. Fibrocystic disease is second in frequency and accounts for 36% patients.8% patients had intraductal papilloma and three percent suffered from duct ectasia.5% patients had other conditions related to breast including two patients presenting with pre histological diagnosis of fibrocystic disease who turned out to be malignant after histopathology. Most of the patients had age range of 20-29 years. Conclusion: Fibroadenoma is the commonest of all benign breast diseases in Pakistani women. Fibrocystic change is the second in this regard. Benign lesions of the breast can resemble its carcinoma on clinical examination.