With the improvement of people’s living standards, women’s overall pursuit of the physiological, social and aesthetic functions of the breast has gradually increased, and as a result, they have become more concerned about breast health. Among the patients with breast diseases in general hospitals, more than 80% of them are seen for breast diseases and lumps, and more than 50% of them are clinically diagnosed as mastocytosis.
What is mastocytosis?
Mastocytosis is a group of non-inflammatory, non-neoplastic diseases caused by hyperplasia and incomplete replenishment of the breast epithelium and mesenchyme due to endocrine dysfunction in women. It is a group of non-inflammatory and non-neoplastic diseases. The main clinical symptoms are lumps in the breast and painful swelling that increases or decreases with the change of menstrual cycle. The age of onset is around puberty, especially in young and middle-aged women between 30 and 50 years old.
Why does breast enlargement occur?
The female breast begins to develop from its infancy as a child and gradually accelerates after puberty. The main player in this natural process is estrogen, which stimulates breast development. Progesterone, on the other hand, is responsible for protecting the breasts. Since the breast is a target organ for sex hormones, the glandular tissues of the breast undergo corresponding changes during the physiological cycle in response to changes in sex hormones.
If you are old, unmarried, childless, not breastfeeding, emotionally volatile, anxious, depressed, or under too much stress, you will easily lose the balance of estrogen and progesterone in your body, and the estrogen in your body will be at a high level for a long time and continue to stimulate the breast tissue, but your breasts will not be protected by progesterone, so your breast will always be in the process of proliferation but not rejuvenation or incomplete rejuvenation, which will easily lead to breast enlargement over time.
What conditions affect the occurrence of mastocytosis?
1, related to age: the incidence is higher between 30 and 50 years old, and the incidence decreases above 50 years old, which may be related to estrogen levels.
2, closely related to occupation and education: the higher the education level, the higher the incidence rate. This may be due to the fact that the higher the level of education, the greater the chance of engaging in mental work, and the greater the pressure of work and competition. It is easy to lead to endocrine disorders.
3, related to personality: introverted people, easy to suppress, anxiety is always not completely relaxed.
4.Related to dietary habits: those who like meat and eat more fat, resulting in an increase in prolactin, which increases estrogen secretion through the thalamus-pituitary axis.
5, related to breastfeeding, the number of abortions: breastfeeding after childbirth is a physiological regulation of the breast, the breast has a protective effect, not breastfeeding milk in the milk ducts accumulate storage, blocking the ducts, resulting in the occurrence of breast disease. Post-pregnancy miscarriage interferes with the physiological function of the breast, which also predisposes to breast enlargement.
What are the concerns of patients with mastocytosis?
Patients with breast lumps are worried about the development of life-threatening breast cancer. Painful discomfort in the breast affects the neuro-endocrine system of the organism, thus aggravating the anxiety. Fear of loss of the social and aesthetic functions of the breast. Patients with moderate or severe breast hyperplasia not only experience abnormalities in the physiological functions of the breast, which affect work and life, but may also lead to breast deformation (especially after biopsy surgery) thus negatively affecting women’s body image social function sexual function, etc.
Why should we pay attention to the diagnosis and treatment of breast hyperplasia?
In breast surgery, the importance of mastocytosis is to detect possible coexisting breast cancer as early as possible. Mastocytosis has varying degrees of breast pain, which causes some pain to the patient. It is easy to be confused with breast cancer when lumps appear, and some patients with mastocytosis may become cancerous.
Can mastocytosis become cancerous?
Despite its high incidence, mastocytosis is a benign proliferative disease with a good prognosis and some patients with mastocytosis have a tendency to heal themselves.
In clinical practice, many women worry about breast cancer when they find hard lumps in their breasts, or they worry about cancer when they are detected with breast hyperplasia. In fact, cancer rarely occurs in mastocytosis. It can be said that more than 90% of mammary hyperplasia is safe and will not become cancerous, so patients only need to check themselves regularly or go to the hospital for review.
Whether mammary hyperplasia will develop into breast cancer or not is related to whether the hyperplasia is accompanied by epithelial atypical hyperplasia. Atypical hyperplasia is subdivided into mild, moderate and severe. Only severe atypical hyperplasia has the potential to develop into cancer. It is worth mentioning that epithelial atypical hyperplasia is only a pathological concept and is not the same thing as what we usually call mastopexy. Moreover, the vast majority of mastopexy patients do not have epithelial atypical hyperplasia, so most people do not need to worry about it.
However, if a patient with breast enlargement has a family history of cancer, has not given birth, or has not been breastfeeding, the chance of developing cancer is 3-10 times higher than that of the average person, so such patients should be vigilant and go to the hospital for timely checkups as a precaution.
Specifically, breast hyperplasia can be divided into three types: breast pain, breast adenopathy and cystic hyperplasia.
Breast pain and early stage mammary adenopathy (lobular hyperplasia) do not cause cancer.
A small number of women with advanced mammary adenopathy may develop cancer, with an incidence of 1%, and cystic hyperplasia has a 3%-8% chance of developing cancer.