Hormones and the pathophysiology of fibrocystic mastopathy.

There is some reason to believe that common benign diseases of the breast are in great part caused by abnormalities of the hormonal milieu in which the breasts exist. Relative hyperestrinism by itself may cause mammary dysplasia, but it is likely that etiologic contributions are required from genetic factors within the cells of the mammary gland, from abnormalities of pituitary mammotropic hormone activity and from surplus or deficit of other circulating nongonadal factors.