[Pathogenetic mechanisms of cyst formation in the breasts and mammae]

Mammary glands and endocrine organs of human females ranging in ages from 6 months to 25 years (228 cases) as well as in intact, castrated, hypophysectomized, thyroidectomized, adrenalectomized young virgin female rats treated with steroid hormones and thyroxin were studied by various morphological methods. The process of cyst formation in female mammary glands was found to be enhanced by intensified endocrine influences on them in the interval of 6 months to 2 1/2 years (the effect of maternal hormones received by the baby with milk) and from 11 to 15 years (physiological activation of endocrine glands) and to decline in the period of relative quiescence at the age of 2 1/2 to 11 years. Both hyperestrogenism and hypercorticism and hypofunction of the thyroid gland as well as dysfunction of adenohypophysis and neuro-trophic apparatus of mammary glands are important in the pathogenesis of cysts.