One morning during the long vacation, my old classmate, whom I had not contacted for nearly 20 years, called me timidly and blamed herself for interrupting my rare and clear dream. The old classmate discovered a fibroadenoma in her breast ten years ago, and because the lump was small, her doctor did not recommend immediate surgery.
When I asked her what she was worried about, she said she was afraid to face the reality because she was afraid of getting information from me that the fibroadenoma might become cancerous. I was silent on the other end of the phone. Fibroadenoma, a common breast disease, turned out to have a much greater impact on everyone than I had imagined.
1. What is a fibroadenoma?
Fibroadenoma is the most common benign tumor in the breast and can be found in women of any age after puberty, although it is most common in girls between the ages of 18 and 25. When you have fibroadenoma, you usually do not feel anything, you just feel a painless lump in your breast, and symptoms of breast cancer such as breast pain or nipple overflow do not occur.
Many times, people are hesitant to go to the hospital because they unintentionally find an isolated lump on their breast that is not painful to the touch and sliding around inside the breast.
Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish whether the “lump” is a lobular growth or a fibroadenoma.
There is a very practical method: if the size of the lump changes significantly around the time of your period, then in most cases, the lump is just a lobular hyperplasia; but if the lump does not change significantly at any time, then it may be a mature fibroadenoma.
The occurrence of fibroadenoma is related to endocrine hormone imbalance, which can occur due to elevated local estrogen. Therefore, the so-called “essential oil breast massage” is not necessarily a good thing.
2.Will fibroadenoma of the breast become cancerous or not?
According to the current research results, there is no direct correlation between breast fibroids and breast cancer, and the possibility of cancer is very low and can be almost ignored. Most fibroadenomas are not likely to recur after complete removal, but young patients may develop new lesions in other areas or adjacent to the original surgical area and grow new breast fibroids.
Some studies have shown that patients with “fibroadenomas without complex features” do not have an increased risk of developing breast cancer relative to the general population. The rumors of fibroadenoma cancer on the Internet are all nonsense; some of them are simply false advertisements made by unscrupulous hospitals to attract patients.
However, although breast fibroids themselves are not cancerous, for single oversized lumps, beware of low-grade malignant lobulated tumors. Especially during pregnancy, fibroadenomas grow rapidly and are much more likely to develop into lobulated tumors. Therefore, a clear diagnosis is very important.
3.What should I do if I have fibroadenoma?
Once fibroadenoma is formed, it can only be eradicated by surgery, and cannot be cured by taking medicine. However, benign masses can be operated electively, that is to say, there is no rush to open it.
When you hear about surgery, you will be nervous again: do you need anesthesia? Will it leave a scar? What will happen without surgery?
In fact, the whole procedure is very simple, not much more complicated than tooth extraction, and when and how to do the surgery is entirely up to you. The whole procedure takes about half an hour, and the local anesthetic is administered to the breast surgery area.
Girls who love beauty can choose minimally invasive surgery, and the scars are not visible at all after the operation. In fact, the traditional suture technique has been very much improved nowadays, and the post-operative period is almost just a faint linear scar, and there will no longer be the centipede-like scars that used to affect the aesthetics.
Because it is an elective surgery, it is necessary to avoid surgery during menstruation in order to protect the breast and lactation function; if you are preparing for pregnancy, it is recommended to have the surgery six months before to give the breast sufficient time to recover.
If surgery is not done, then the fibroadenoma will be so big or grow slowly. In order to exclude the possibility of breast cancer, it is recommended to have an ultrasound once in 3 to 6 months to observe the size, boundary and blood flow of the lump; for women over 40 years old, mammogram should be added once a year.
4.What should I pay attention to in terms of diet?
What should be eaten and what should not be eaten?
My opinion is that all foods should be eaten in moderation to ensure balanced nutrition. A healthy diet structure is an important way to protect breast health.
(1) Recommend eating soybeans
Soybeans are protective for the mammary glands. The soy isoflavones contained in soy are one of the phytoestrogens, which are different from human estrogen.
Studies have found that phytoestrogens play a two-way regulatory role on estrogen levels in women. Simply put, it can play a role in supplementing estrogen when there is a shortage of estrogen in our body, while it plays a suppressive role when the estrogen level in our body is too high.
(2) Royal jelly is not recommended
Estrogen-rich health products such as propolis, royal jelly and pollen are not recommended.
There is no need to be overly nervous about having fibroadenoma, especially for young women in their 20s, and there is no need to suffer from fibroadenoma.