What is a Breast Cyst/Lump?
What are Breast Cysts/Lumps?

Breast cysts are fluid-filled sacs within your breast. You can have one or many breast cysts. They're often described as round or oval lumps with distinct edges. In texture, a breast cyst usually feels like a soft grape or a water-filled balloon, but sometimes a breast cyst feels firm.

Breast cysts are common in women in their 30s and 40s. If you have breast cysts, they usually disappear after menopause, unless you're taking hormone therapy.

Breast cysts don't require treatment unless a cyst is large and painful or otherwise uncomfortable. In that case, draining the fluid from a breast cyst can ease your symptoms.

Symptoms

Signs and symptoms of breast cysts include:

1)A smooth, easily movable round or oval breast lump with distinct edges
2)Breast pain or tenderness in the area of the breast lump
3)Increase in breast lump size and breast tenderness just before your period
4)Decrease in breast lump size and resolution of other signs and symptoms after your period

Having one or many simple breast cysts doesn't increase your risk of breast cancer.

Causes

Western Medicine Treatments

No treatment is necessary for simple breast cysts. Your doctor may recommend nothing more than closely monitoring a breast cyst to see if it resolves on its own.

Fine-needle aspiration

Fine-needle aspiration, the procedure used to diagnose a breast cyst, also may serve as treatment, if your doctor removes all the fluid from the cyst at the time of diagnosis, your breast lump disappears and your symptoms resolve.

First, your doctor feels your breast to locate the cyst and hold it steady. Next, he or she inserts a thin needle into the breast lump and withdraws (aspirates) the cyst fluid. Often, fine-needle aspiration is done using ultrasound to guide accurate placement of the needle.

1)If the fluid is nonbloody and the breast lump disappears, you need no further treatment.
2)If the fluid appears bloody or the breast lump doesn't disappear, your doctor may send a sample of the fluid for laboratory testing and refer you to a breast surgeon or to a radiologist for follow-up.
3)If no fluid is withdrawn, your doctor will likely recommend an imaging test — such as mammography or ultrasound — and possibly a biopsy to further evaluate the lump.

If you have breast cysts, you may need to have fluid drained more than once. Recurrent or new cysts are common.

Hormone use

Using oral contraceptives to regulate your menstrual cycles may help reduce the recurrence of breast cysts. Discontinuing hormone replacement therapy during the postmenopausal years may reduce the formation of cysts as well.

Surgery

Surgical removal of a breast cyst is necessary only in a few unusual circumstances. If an uncomfortable breast cyst recurs month after month, or if a breast cyst contains blood-tinged fluid and displays other worrisome signs, surgery may be considered.

adopted from mayoclinic.com