Profile of benign breast diseases in western Saudi Arabia

OBJECTIVES To describe the histopathological patterns of benign breast diseases (BBD) among Saudi patients. METHODS This is a retrospective review of BBD reports of Saudi patients of both genders and all age  groups seen between January 2006 and December 2013 at King Fahad Hospital, Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. RESULTS Out of the total 1005 breast biopsies, 603 cases (60%) were BBD. The female to male ratio was 30.7:1. The overall mean age for BBD was 27.5 years, with an age range of 14-80 years. The most common lesion was fibroadenoma (FA) accounting for 44.3% of cases (mean age: 23.5 years), followed by 23.4% fibrocystic change (FCC) (mean age: 37.1 years). Both lesions had a peak occurrence in the third decade. Inflammatory lesions constituted 13.9% of cases. Most common were granulomatous mastitis (3.5%), chronic mastitis (3.3%), and acute mastitis with abscess (3.1%). Other major lesions encountered were fibroadenomatoid hyperplasia (3.1%), intraductal papilloma (2.8%), and benign phylloides tumor (2.6%). All benign diagnoses in male patients were gynecomastia and most patients (68.4%) were under 40 years. CONCLUSION In this study, BBD constituted 60% of breast lumps, and were mostly FA and FCC. The BBD peaked at the 20-29 year age range.