Accessory breast
human disease
Accessory breasts, also known as polymastia, supernumerary breasts, or mammae erraticae, is the atavistic condition of having an additional breast. These extra breasts may appear with or without nipples or areolae. The condition is most commonly observed in males and is generally harmless, often going untreated, but many affected individuals opt to undergo plastic surgery to remove the additional breasts for aesthetic reasons.
Polythelia is a related condition in which one or more additional nipples form in the absence of developed breast tissue.
Presentation
In some cases, the accessory breast may not be visible at the surface; in these cases, it is sometimes possible to distinguish their appearance from normal breast tissue via MRI. Some individuals with accessory breasts experience lactation.
There is some evidence that the condition may be more common in Native American populations.
Cause
Polymastia typically occurs in the womb during development. During normal development, breast tissue will develop along the milk line, and additional tissue will disintegrate and be absorbed into the body. Polymastia occurs when the additional tissue does not disintegrate before birth. This condition can be inherited.
The public source identifies “Accessory breast” as human disease. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Accessory, breast and human.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2701591. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Accessory breast” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.