SYMPTOMS. — Adenofibroma grows insidiously, but pain is only present in exceptional cases, and is usually in creased during the menstrual period. The growth rolls under the fingers, and its surface is generally irregular, though the skin is unchanged and elastic under pressure. The nipple is not retracted, but there occasionally exudes from it a sero-sanguineous fluid.
The subcutaneous veins are only slightly, if at all, dilated, except when the tumor is very large. The axillary glands are usually normal, and the pa tient's general health is good. Very rarely these growths have been known to attain a considerable size in a short time, and the distended skin to become thinned and ulcerated. But the neous tissues remain free and loose, and the ulcerative process presents none of the characteristics of cancerous ulcera tions.
—The progress of small adenomata may be retarded by the local use of iodine and by slight compression, but, if they continue to increase in size, they should be excised. It is important to remember that the excision should be complete, the least remnant becoming, otherwise, a focus of recurrence.
Adenomata are not the harmless growths that many believe them to be, as there is a great probability that they may and do become cancerous. Medic inal therapeutics, external and internal, are useless. Early recourse to the knife affords a safe and satisfactory method of dealing with them. Balloch (Amer. Jour. of Obstet., Oct., '9S).
Galactoceles, or Lacteal Tumors. (See MAMMARY GLAND, volume iv.)
Cysts.—These growths are occasion ally met with, and present only as symp tom a localized enlargement, with un mistakable fluctuation.
Cysts are usually due to dilatation of the glandular portion of the lacteal tubes, followed by obliteration of the ex cretory duct; occasionally the sac de velops in the interstices of the gland. In the tubular form a clear or gelatinous scrum is exuded; the parenchymatous cysts, however, usually contain a san guineous fluid. The cystic walls form part of the surrounding tissues, and can not he peeled off from them without lacerating the latter.
A peculiar type of cystic disease of the breast has been described by R.&lus.
It consists in the development in the healthy tissue, and in both breasts at once, of a large number of cysts varying greatly in size from that of a pin's head to a hen's egg, and containing a more or less thick liquid, which may be either quite transparent or dark. Their growth is gradual and cause but little, if any, fering. They feel as hard subcutaneous masses which cannot be said to fluctuate. Rechis suggests their kinship to epitheli oma and the theoretical possibility of their assuming a malignant type.
Clinical experience has sustained this view in some instances. As a rule, how ever, a pure cyst, when left to itself, mains benign, and, when operated upon under strict antiseptic precautions, does not recur.