Proliferative Breast Disease: Diagnosis and Implications

M. H. Skolnick et at. (1) obtained specimens by multiple fine-needle aspiration from the breasts of women with and without a family history of breast cancer. They assessed the prevalence of certain cytologic changes in these groups of women, which they labeled proliferative breast disease (PBD). Skolnick et al.'s use of this term is unfortunate because PBD is a well-recognized histologic diagnosis (2, 3) of changes that bear only a slight and untested resemblance to the cytologic findings in (1). In order to avoid confusion, we will hereafter use PBD in its conventional sense. Although PBD is consistently associated with increased breast cancer risk (4), studies have not been performed which show that cytologic abnormalities or similarly defined patterns have such an association. Skolnick