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 .
Centchroman vs tamoxifen for regression of mastalgia: a randomized controlled trial.
INTRODUCTION Several agents have been tried in the management of  mastalgia .  Centchroman ( Ormeloxifene ) , a novel non-steroidal selective estrogen receptor modulator ( SERM ) , has also been recently used in the management of  mastalgia . METHODS Eligible patients , who had mastalgia for more than 3 months , were r and omized into two groups - Group A received centchroman 30 mg daily and Group B received tamoxifen 10 mg daily . Treatment was continued for a total of 12 weeks ; thereafter , patients were followed for another 12 weeks without medication to assess the continuum of relief . Pain severity was measured with VAS score . Patients were considered to have complete pain relief if their VAS score decreased to 3 or less . RESULTS Patients , in both the groups , showed gradual improvement in mastalgia with passage of time up to 12 weeks . Following cessation of treatment at 12 weeks , partial relapse of pain was observed at 24 weeks . There was no significant difference between Group A and Group B in terms of mean VAS Score and proportion of women reporting pain relief at 4 , 8 , 12 , and 24 weeks . Fifteen patients in Group A had side effects namely dizziness , menstrual irregularities and development of ovarian cysts . There was no side effect noted in group B. CONCLUSION Centchroman and tamoxifen were found to be of similar effectiveness in providing pain relief in mastalgia . High frequency of side effects , particularly development of ovarian cyst , in patients receiving centchroman is a matter of concern
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 .