What is the difference between breast hyperplasia and breast fibroids?

Both breast hyperplasia and fibroids can affect women's breast health and are likely to present as symptoms of breast lumps. However, these are actually two different diseases. Many patients with breast fibroids also have breast hyperplasia and need to be treated differently.

1. Since the clinical manifestations of breast fibroids and breast hyperplasia are both breast lumps, it is easy for patients to confuse the two diseases. In addition, some patients have both fibroids and breast hyperplasia, and may experience premenstrual breast pain. Both can cause breast lumps, which may be single or multiple and have a firm texture.

2. The breast lumps of fibroadenoma are mostly bilateral and multiple, with different sizes, nodular, lumpy or granular, generally soft in texture, but can also be hard and tough. Occasionally, there are unilateral cases, but they are often accompanied by premenstrual breast pain, and they are also painful when touched. The size and characteristics of the breast lumps may change periodically with menstruation. The age of onset is mostly young and middle-aged. The breast lumps of fibroadenoma are mostly unilateral and single, and the lumps are mostly round or oval, with clear boundaries, large mobility, and generally tough in texture. There are also multiple cases, but generally there is no breast pain, or only mild menstrual breast discomfort, no tenderness, and the size and characteristics of the breast lumps do not change with the menstrual cycle. The patients are mostly under 30 years old, with 20 to 25 years old being the most common.

3. In addition, on breast mammography X-rays, breast fibroadenoma often appears as a round or oval shadow with uniform density and its unique annular transparent halo, which can also serve as an important basis for differential diagnosis. Patients with fibrocystic breast disease who have atypical clinical manifestations or no obvious premenstrual breast pain and only present with breast lumps, especially unilateral single, hard lumps, should be differentiated from breast fibroadenoma and breast cancer.