What is mastocytosis

  Mammary gland hyperplasia is a concept known to many people, and for a long time, many doctors and patients have been treated with mammary gland hyperplasia; in fact, this view is not standardized and even wrong.  In textbooks, newspapers, and in hospitals, doctors and patients often refer to a medical term – mastocytosis or cystic hyperplasia of the breast. Is this correct? Can surgeons make the diagnosis of “mastopexy”? In my opinion, the diagnosis of “mastopexy” should be firmly eliminated in clinical practice. A discussion on this issue will help to standardize medical terminology and clinical behavior.  First of all, we believe that mastocytosis is a pathological diagnosis, and only pathologists can make a diagnosis based on pathological sections; it is not prudent for clinicians to make a diagnosis of mastocytosis without pathological support.  Second, the concept of mammary hyperplasia is imprecise; this terminology does not distinguish between histologic changes; is it a single layer of cellular hyperplasia on pathologic slides? Or is it a multi-layered cellular hyperplasia? Is there atypical hyperplasia? The generalized term mammary hyperplasia does not determine the boundary between normal hyperplasia and abnormal hyperplasia; it does not distinguish the relationship between clinical manifestations and histological changes, which is not conducive to the assessment of precancerous lesions.  Third, the current view is that most benign breast diseases are related to reproductive age, a process from normal to derangement to the appearance of disease. It can be said that the breast tissue of any woman who has ever breastfed will have varying degrees of breast enlargement in pathology, which is a normal change and most of them do not need treatment, but if symptoms, such as pain and lumps, appear, it should be taken seriously and even require treatment.  Therefore, the current clinical diagnosis of breast enlargement is a “beard and brow”, which is inappropriate. I always use this analogy with patients, I say you are a person, can you? There are many kinds of people, so what kind of person are you, a good person? Are you a good person or a bad person? Are you an old man? Are you a child? Are you a man? Or a woman? There is a fundamental difference.  Therefore, the international term Benign breast disease (BBD) refers to the non-malignant state of the breast, which includes a wide range of clinical and pathological disorders [1, we often refer to breast adenopathy, cysts, fibrocystic breast disease, ductal dilatation, breast fibrosis, fibroadenoma, epithelial hyperplasia, histoplasia and papilloma, etc. can be called benign breast disease.  For a long time, imprecise, incomplete and unspecific terminology has tended to imply that the patient is in a “disease” state, ignoring the normal dynamics of the endocrine organ, the breast [2]. (ANDI), which soon gained widespread support and acceptance.  The ANDI concept is a two-way concept that replaces the original “normal” and “disease” views with a normal-to-disease process. (2) there is a progression from normal to abnormal to occasional disease; (3) normal and abnormal are interpreted in context; and (4) the ANDI concept encompasses all aspects – symptoms, signs, histology, and pathology.  Although BBD is benign, some of it has the potential for malignancy, and numerous studies have confirmed that benign breast disease increases the risk of breast cancer; the risk is higher for older women, and therefore, benign breast disease is considered an independent predictor of breast cancer; and once breast cancer occurs, the likelihood of tumors larger than 2 cm increases.  So, what is the risk of benign breast disease developing into breast cancer? According to foreign bulk case studies, it is confirmed that breast adenopathy, ductal dilatation, simple fibroadenoma, fibrosis, mastitis, mild epithelial hyperplasia, and histoplasmosis do not increase the risk of cancer. In contrast, complex fibroadenoma, moderate multilayered epithelial hyperplasia, sclerosing adenopathy, and papilloma mildly to moderately increase the risk of carcinoma, in other words, 1.5 to 2 times higher than normal. Atypical hyperplasia of the ducts and lobules is a moderate increase in the risk of carcinoma, which increases about 4 to 5 times.  From the above information, we can easily see that mild epithelial hyperplasia, moderate multilayered epithelial hyperplasia and atypical hyperplasia are all clinically known as mammary hyperplasia, but their risks are completely different, and a significant portion of mammary hyperplasia does not require treatment, therefore, we should not “grasp a handful of eyebrows” –This may lead to psychological panic and over-treatment of the patient. We recommend that the diagnosis of mastocytosis must be based on a surgical biopsy or puncture. The diagnosis of mastocytosis should not be made in patients without a pathological basis, but rather a clinical diagnosis of benign mastopathy is recommended. Although benign mastopathy is also not a satisfactory diagnosis, at least it can distinguish the normal physiological process from the disease and also avoid the panic that mastopexy brings to the patient. Therefore, we believe that mastopathy is a pathological diagnosis and cannot be used as a standardized clinical diagnosis and is not recommended for clinical use.