Management of the painful and nodular breast

Mild breast pain and nodularity are common and may be considered normal. Only when symptoms are severe enough to affect the patient's lifestyle should drug treatment be considered. Using danazol, bromocriptine or evening primrose oil a clinically useful improvement in pain can be anticipated in 77% of patients with cyclical mastalgia and 44% with non-cyclical mastalgia. Benign nodularity should not be biopsied surgically as it is unnecessary and makes subsequent assessment of the breast difficult.