[Hyperplastic lesions of the high risk breast. Definitions, diagnostic and therapeutic problems]

It has become possible to select from the framework of those women who have epithelial proliferations a group that are at high risk. This has been achieved by bringing together methods employed in the fields of defining better what are lesions of the breast, in assessing what are the best ways early detection of cancer of the breast and in epidemiological researches. The precise significance of these lesions in the absence of sufficiently reliable biological parameters is still problematic and their future still uncertain. Their relationship to invasive cancer is far from being constant, but it is possible for them to regress spontaneously. There are still limits between the results obtained in experimental animals and in human beings but as yet there has been no medical treatment that can be claimed to be a certain way of avoiding proliferative activity in these mastopathies. Surgery is also often poorly adapted to this kind of situation. In view of this, the choice of therapy is often difficult and has to be tailored to each case.