RESULTS Reassurance plus bra-fitting advice provides relief for most women .
There is some benefit in reducing dietary coffee and fat intake .
Dopamine agonists are useful , but less effective than endocrine treatments such as Danazol or Tamoxifen .
Of the Selective Oestrogen Receptor Modulator drugs , Ormeloxifene appears most effective , but is not licenced in the United Kingdom .
Relaxation therapy , acupuncture and kinesiology may be useful but currently lack good evidence of effectiveness .
Subsequent drug therapy should be balanced against its side-effects ; topical NSAIDs and Ormeloxifene show greatest benefit with least side-effects .
INTRODUCTION Idiopathic mastalgia ( benign breast pain of unknown origin ) is often poorly managed because of its subjective nature and unclear aetiology .
Mastalgia is a reason for up to 50 % of breast outpatient referrals .
Existing systematic review s discuss date d treatment options that provide limited symptomatic relief .
Low intensity laser therapy is comparable to bromocriptine-evening primrose oil for the treatment of cyclical mastalgia in Egyptian females.
One of the successful treatments for cyclical mastalgia is bromocriptine evening primrose combination . A double blind study was applied on 80 patients with cyclical mastalgia . They were r and omly divided into two groups ( A and B ) . In group A , patients were treated by bromocriptine/evening primrose . To group B , LILT with specified dosimetry was applied , using a device that delivers He-Ne laser combined with 4 infra-red diode laser . Evaluation of treatment was both subjective ( using VAS ) and objective ( study ing the degree of drop in plasma cortisol level ) . The drop of plasma cortisol with treatment was studied using the student -t distribution . A good response was observed in the laser group in 82.5 % , compared to 63.9 % in the bromocriptine/evening primrose group . There was a significant deference before and after treatment in both groups ( P<0.05 ) . This difference was more for the drug treated group than for the laser treated group , but in the latter , it acted on a wider sector of patients . In conclusion , LILT is recommended as a new treatment modality for cyclical mastalgia
RESULTS Reassurance plus bra-fitting advice provides relief for most women .
There is some benefit in reducing dietary coffee and fat intake .
Dopamine agonists are useful , but less effective than endocrine treatments such as Danazol or Tamoxifen .
Of the Selective Oestrogen Receptor Modulator drugs , Ormeloxifene appears most effective , but is not licenced in the United Kingdom .
Relaxation therapy , acupuncture and kinesiology may be useful but currently lack good evidence of effectiveness .
Subsequent drug therapy should be balanced against its side-effects ; topical NSAIDs and Ormeloxifene show greatest benefit with least side-effects .
INTRODUCTION Idiopathic mastalgia ( benign breast pain of unknown origin ) is often poorly managed because of its subjective nature and unclear aetiology .
Mastalgia is a reason for up to 50 % of breast outpatient referrals .
Existing systematic review s discuss date d treatment options that provide limited symptomatic relief .