Ultra Sound

Ultra sound is a non-radioactive way of viewing the breast. It uses sonogram or sound waves to penetrate the tissue and views patients with radiographic dense breasts, younger patients, and patients with breast prostheses. It is considered harmless and is often used to view prenatal infants in the womb. The medical field not does not accept ultrasound as a primary breast screening technique, but it can be used as a back up to mammography. Once a specific lump is located through a mammogram or a palpable mass located through a manual breast exam, the breast lesion is targeted for examination with a high resolution, real time ultrasound. Characteristics of the mass are noted; shape, size, definition of borders and amount of transmission or attenuation, or presence or absence of internal echoes, degree of reflection from the anterior(front) and posterior(back) wall. The major use of ultrasound is in detecting if a mass is fluid filled like a fiber-adenoma cyst or solid as found in cancerous tumors, prior to ordering a biopsy. In fact, the accuracy of ultrasound to determine this criteria is 100%(1). Ultrasound can thus spare a number of women unnecessary biopsies since cysts represent 25% of palpable masses and mammographically apparent masses.

1. Our thanks to Lidia Shulten-Valdizon, ultrasound technician at UC Davis, Sacramento Ca. for her contribution to this article.