Diabetic Mastopathy: An Uncommon Complication of Diabetes Mellitus

As you know uncontrolled diabetes can lead to various complications, diabetic mastopathy is one such rare complication. It is also known as diabetic fibrous mastopathy. In this condition, you may observe lumps or lesions around breast, which are mainly composed of fibrotic and inflammatory elements and are usually non-cancerous. The condition is more common in people with type-1 diabetes and maximum cases reported are in pre-menopausal women.

Symptoms of diabetic mastopathy

Main symptom of this condition is development of lesions or lumps in the breast. These lumps are usually hard, irregular and discrete. You may not experience any pain when you touch the lump. In some cases presence of these lumps can be felt on one side or both the breasts where as, in some cases, these lumps are not even detectable.

What are the causes of diabetic mastopathy?

The exact cause for diabetic mastopathy is still not clear but the possible reasons that can lead to it are:

• An autoimmune reaction

• Genetic factors such as human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type

• Association with insulin therapy for long duration

• Hyperglycemia

Diagnosis & treatment of diabetic mastopathy

MRI or ultrasound are amongst the first examinations that your doctor will suggest, if something abnormal is identified to further check the condition. It is important for you to understand that lumps in diabetic mastopathy are very similar to breast cancer and can’t be differentiated just by manual examination or ultrasound. To understand the nature of lump and to rule out the possibility of breast cancer, it is important to undergo a biopsy. In this procedure, your doctor will remove few tissues from the breast through an invasive method and not a surgery, which will then be sent to the lab to analyse if it is benign or malignant in nature. This is the difference between breast cancer and diabetic mastopathy. In case of diabetic mastopathy lumps can be removed surgically.

If you had diabetic mastopathy and have got the lumps removed, there are still chances that the condition may reoccur. To find out if there are any new lumps you should follow up with your doctor.

Updates From Lybrate: A Good and healthy Diabetic diet of nutritious products can help in managing the diabetes problem. You can explore a wide range of diabetic supplements available on Lybrate.