Risk of invasive breast cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ in women with atypical papillary lesions of the breast

Abstract: Benign papillary lesions of the breast include papilloma and papillomatosis. A retrospective analysis of patients with a papillary breast lesion diagnosed between October 1992 and December 2009 was performed. Patients were excluded if they had a previous or concurrent diagnosis of invasive or in situ cancer or less than 6 months of follow‐up. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to determine the risk of developing subsequent malignancy. The log rank test was used to compare groups of patients. Median follow‐up for the 167 patients included in the study was 4.6 years. Fifty‐one patients had a papillary lesion with atypia and 116 patients had a papillary lesion without atypia. Patients with a papillary lesion with atypia were more likely to develop invasive or in situ breast cancer with a 5 year risk of 13.0% versus 4.6% in patients with no atypia (p = 0.03).