Reproductive, Pregnancy and Breast Health Terms

A common condition marked by benign (not cancer) changes in breast tissue.

Not simply another word for the breast: the glandular working part inside it, and a distant relative of the sweat gland.

Compression is the uncomfortable part and also the useful part, since spreading the tissue thin is what makes small findings visible at a lower dose.

No screening test is purely beneficial, and mammography programs are judged on the balance between cancers found early and abnormalities that never needed finding.

A system used to deliver internal radiation therapy to breast cancer patients after surgery to remove their cancer.

Removing more tissue does not by itself buy more survival, which is why breast-conserving surgery with radiation matches mastectomy for many early cancers.

Mastitis is breast tissue inflammation most common during breastfeeding, though its symptoms can occasionally overlap with those of a rare inflammatory breast cancer.

Refers to the use of drugs to suppress the function of the ovaries or testicles.

A rare type of breast cancer that often can be treated successfully.

Megestrol is a synthetic progestin used to treat certain hormone sensitive cancers and to help stimulate appetite in people with significant weight loss.

Hormones (estrogen, progesterone, or both) given to women after menopause to replace the hormones no longer produced by the ovaries.

The periodic discharge of blood and tissue from the uterus.

Menstruation is the cyclical shedding of the uterine lining that occurs when pregnancy does not take place, recurring throughout the reproductive years.

A tiny deposit of calcium in the breast that cannot be felt but can be detected on a mammogram.

A thin tube in the breast that carries milk from the breast lobules to the nipple.

A type of breast imaging test that is used to detect cancer cells in the breasts of some women who have had abnormal mammograms, or who have dense breast tissue.

A drug used to treat some types of testicular cancer.

A drug used to treat advanced prostate cancer that does not respond to hormones, adult acute nonlymphocytic leukemia, and advanced or chronic multiple sclerosis.

A substance that is being studied in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Removal of the whole breast together with the armpit lymph nodes, sparing the chest muscles the older operation sacrificed.