Pathology Question

[Brooke120]

I had an excisional biopsy for a radial scar. Pathology came back as:
Benign breast tissue with focal duct hyperplasia and columnar cell change with cytologic atypia. Biopsy site changes are seen.
What does this mean? Doctor said it does increase my chances of future breast cancer and only thing to do is close monitoring.  Should I be worried about this? Not sure in layman terms what this all means.

[bluebutterfly2222]

Thanks for getting back to me.

I am glad to hear the entire lesion was excised.  That, along will the benign biopsy report, is good news.

I have seen  reference to a 1999 study that indicated that having  a radial scar may increase a woman's risk for BC two-fold, but also to a 2007 report that  concluded that RS imparts no increased breast cancer risk above that of women who had proliferative disease without atypia (PDWA) or atypical hyperplasia (AH) without RS.

Just follow the recommendations made in regard to monitoring and you should be fine.

Best wishes...

[Brooke120]

The entire lesion was excised. My post op appt was so quick and the doc didn't came in the room, looked at my incision, read the biopsy results and said I will need to be monitored more frequently and to get a repeat mammo/sono and see her in 6 months.

[bluebutterfly2222]

Did you have the entire lesion excised, or just an excision biopsy?

Although your doctor stated you just need close monitoring, I found this recommendation from a research study of radial scars. Based on this, it sounds as though complete excision would be a good idea, if you haven't already had that done.

"A percutaneous diagnosis of a radial scar does not exclude associated malignancy at surgical excision. Mammographic and sonographic features of a lesion diagnosed as a radial scar at percutaneous imaging-guided biopsy do not predict which lesions will have associated malignancy at surgery. Therefore, all patients with percutaneous diagnosis of a radial scar should undergo surgical excision regardless of mammographic and sonographic appearances, until further criteria can be determined."

(But discuss your concerns with your doctor, or perhaps get a second opinion, because I am not a medical professional in the area of BC.)

Best wishes...