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 woman unnecessary biopsies since cysts represent
25% of palpable masses and mammographically apparent masses.
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