A microscopic change in breast tissue can help doctors predict whether a woman whose biopsy is benign may develop cancer later.
If the tissue has an abnormality called a radial scar, the woman is almost twice as likely to develop cancer, researchers in Boston found.
Under a microscope, normal breast tissue shows random clusters of ducts. Radial scars have a core of what appears to be scarred tissue surrounded by a cluster of ducts radiating outward.
Some studies found a link between radial scars and breast cancer; others were inconclusive. The latest study, conducted at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, is believed to be the largest so far.
It looked at 1,396 women with benign breast biopsies. Ninety-nine had radial scars.
Nearly one-third -- 32 -- of the women with radial scars later developed breast cancer, compared with 223, or about one-fifth, of those without the abnormalities.
The risks were higher among women with more and larger radial scars.
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