Publication:

Clinical spectrum and hormonal profile of patients with non-inflammatory benign breast disorders: a cross-sectional study

Background Benign breast disorders (BBD) are one of the most common problems seen in women. Since development of the breast is under the influence of various hormones, this study was done to document the clinical spectrum of females with BBD, and to understand if any association exists between serum levels of various hormones and BBD.

Methods This was a cross sectional study of 134 patients who presented to the surgical OPD with non-inflammatory BBD. These patients were evaluated for serum levels of 8 hormones-estrogen, progesterone, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinising hormone (LH), prolactin, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), testosterone and prostate specific antigen (PSA). The levels of these hormones were correlated with the type of BBD.

Results Breast pain was the most common presenting complaint (67.16%), followed by breast lump (51.49%). Most patients were diagnosed as proliferative BBD (50%) followed by mastalgia (32.8%) and non-proliferative BBD (17.2%), 36.57% patients had fibroadenoma. The 73.88% of patients showed abnormal serum levels of at least one of the hormones. Most common abnormalities were significantly detectable levels of serum PSA (51.4%), and decreased levels of serum testosterone (20.8%). Among the rest, TSH was raised in 9.7%, estrogen was raised in 9.7%, FSH was raised in 8.9%, prolactin was raised in 8.9%, LH was raised in 6.7% and progesterone was raised in 2.9%.

Conclusions Our study suggests that abnormality in various hormones (seen in 73.88% of our patients) could be responsible for development of BBD.  The interplay of these hormones on aberrations in breast development and involution is unclear and warrants further studies on larger populations.