Symptoms and signs in benign and malignant tumours of the breast

The diagnostic distribution and the relation between diagnosis and symptoms, symptom duration, tumour site, tumour size and breast size were studied in 1 244 women with breast symptoms examined at a special breast tumour clinic. 9% of the women had cancer, 62% fibroadenosis and 6% fibroadenoma. In 18% no breast disease was found. A painful tumour was experienced by 19% of all women with breast cancer, but by 54% of breast cancer patients below 50 years of age. 50% of the patients with fibroadenosis had a painful tumour. This symptom was thus not a discriminating feature between cancer and fibroadenosis in younger women. The reason that most breast tumours, both benign and malignant, are located in the upper outer quadrant is not known. It has been proposed that this might be due to the larger volume of this quadrant as compared with the others. The present results contradict this view.