But a small group of women with benign lab results may still have an increased chance of developing breast cancer, according to a new study. A report in today's New England Journal of Medicine says that 7 percent of women in a national sample are at a doubled risk of developing breast cancer. That's because their breast tissue contains mysterious structures called radial scars. A new study says radial scars double the risk of breast cancer for some women. Normal tissue shows random clusters of ducts surrounded by connective tissue.
Radial scars have a core of scar- like tissue, with ducts radiating from there.
Courtesy of Stuart Schnitt, MD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. But doctors have wondered for several years whether they may be related to cancer. The study was designed to address that question. More radial scars, and larger ones, were each related to an increased risk. Despite their name, radial scars are not related to injury, biopsy or surgery, stresses study leader Stuart Schnitt, a pathologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.