Ione, I agree with you about the term "fibrocystic disease."  In my library
I have a copy of "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book" by Susan Love, A Merloyd
Lawrence Book, published by Addison-Wesley, USA,1990. This is not a
scholarly work, but is quite readable and useful to lend patients who need
general information about their breasts. (The breastfeeding information is
quite weak; and for a good laugh, I refer all of you to take a look at the
drawing of a woman expressing milk into a cup. It appears as if a faucet has
been turned on full blast--the woman must be expressing about a quart per
minute! maybe this was edited in later editions?)

Dr. Love spends an entire chapter discussing the "Myth of Fibrocystic
Disease," suggesting

>"Fibrocystic Disease is a meaningless umbrella term--a wastebasket into
>which doctors throw every breast problem that isn't cancerous. The symptoms
>that it emcompasses are so varied and so unrelated to each other that the
>term is wholly without meaning."
>
While I hesitate to use up Lactnet space, I think her cautions are worth
noting. First, she points out that labelling this as a "disease" may have
consequences for some women's insurance coverage (e.g, you may not get
coverage if you have been diagnosed with a chronic disease).  She also
points to the snowball effect:

>Finally, the existence of the diagnosis "fibrocystic disease" has
>negatively affected the research done on the specific clinical symtoms
>women experience...The research done in the U.S. on nonmalignant breast
>symptoms isn't very good--and you can see why...[because many unrelated
>conditions are put under the same label "fibrocystic disease."]

She and her colleagues did quite a bit of research into the history of the
term (why has it become so popular) and--does this sound familiar:

>The problem is that medical literature tends to be a bit
>incestuous--doctors read a study, are impressed with it, and use its
>information in their own articles... Hence, it can appear that impressive
>numbers of medical authorities have independently come to the same
>conclusion.
:-\
Margery Wilson, IBCLC