Structural anatomy of the breast

Introduction: The female breast, as originally described by Cooper in 1840[1], is a fundamental part of the reproductive system, and therefore is included in essentially every anatomy textbook [2-32]. Surprisingly, there has been very little anatomical research conducted on the breast since Cooper’s work[1]. Cooper’s [1] descriptions of the anatomy of the breast were extensive. His methodology however lacked detail in terms of the number of cadavers that anatomical descriptions were based on or any quantitative data to support his descriptions.