Breast Pathology 2019

Breast microcalcifications

Breast microcalcifications are small calcium deposits in the soft tissue of the breast. Indeed, breast microcalcifications are extremely common in women and are almost always a benign (non-cancerous) breast condition. So many different factors are taken into account when deciding if a potential lesion is malignant or not.  Radiologists consider breast microcalcifications as a possible very early indicator for breast cancer.  However, this may or may not be the case and only histological findings will confirm the suspicion. When evaluating microcalcifications, if there are combinations of findings that tend to lead to the same outcome (benign or malignant), it is generally true that those predictions carry even more weight. It can be said that as a general rule, when the microcalcifications are distributed in diffuse or bilateral arrangements, or with a round or punctuate shape, or scattered in dense breast tissue, the situation is usually benign.