Page D L, Jensen R A, Simpson J F, Dupont W D
Department of Pathology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee 37232, USA.
J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia. 2000 Oct;5(4):341-9. doi: 10.1023/a:1009521726605.
Premalignant breast disease in humans is a concept that admits to a broad range of elements and possible determinants predicting the likelihood of developing breast cancer. Most of these elements are relative, such as the risk of breast cancer for women that is 130 times that of men and peaks at a younger age by about 10 years. Breast cancer is clearly a stochastic, multifactorial process that evolves over many years in which we must make predictions by likelihood. This review will present the most specially defined and reliably proven of these elements, highlighting anatomic and molecular factors.
