Breast Reduction and Cancer Surveillance and Risk

The incidence of breast cancer and cancer screening are both influenced by reduction mammoplasty. Breast reduction has been shown to decrease the incidence of breast cancer through mechanisms that are still not fully understood. Despite risk reduction, screening mammography should be performed in accordance with national guidelines. Postoperative findings after reduction mammoplasty on screening mammography are predictable and include skin thickening, transverse retroareolar bands, oil cysts, calcifications, parenchymal redistribution, and nipple-areolar complex displacement. Importantly, these signs change over time and must be differentiated from possible unrelated proliferative and neoplastic findings. Better understanding of these changes has led to similar rates of recall and additional imaging in patients who have undergone breast reduction compared to those who have not without hindrance of diagnostic sensitivity.