Why ultrasound after mammogram

Or, you may belong to a recommended age group. The United States Preventive Services Task Force suggests that women between 50 and 74 years old and at average risk for breast cancer schedule a mammogram every two years. Many health organizations have breast cancer screening guidelines, including the American Cancer Society, American College of Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and more.

When determining when to schedule your first mammogram, talk to your doctor about your health history, potential risk factors and any current symptoms you are experiencing. How does a mammogram work? A mammogram is a type of x-ray specifically designed to take images of breast tissue. In some cases, this health screening can detect cancer in patients up to three years before they feel any signs of it. So the machine can capture images of your breasts, you will stand in front of it while a technologist places one breast at a time on a plate.

Women should find out about dense breast tissue when they get their baseline mammogram at age The disclosure is state law. Women must be told dense tissue increases their risk of breast cancer and makes mammogram results harder to read. Ask them to discuss your optimal annual screening plan. A mammogram uses regular x-ray technology. Fatty tissue shows up as gray and dense tissue shows up white. A cancerous tumor would also show up as white. Ultrasound uses sound waves that bounce off tissue.

Different tissue makes very different echo patterns. For example, a fluid-filled cyst looks different than a solid tumor. The healthcare provider moves a wand-like device called a transducer over your skin to make the images of your breasts. The transducer sends out sound waves that bounce off your breast tissue. The sound waves are too high-pitched for you to hear. The transducer then picks up the bounced sound waves.

These are made into pictures of the inside of your breasts. Your healthcare provider can add another device called a Doppler probe to the transducer. This probe lets your healthcare provider hear the sound waves the transducer sends out. He or she can hear how fast blood is flowing through a blood vessel and in which direction it is flowing.

No sound or a faint sound may mean that you have a blockage in the flow. Ultrasound is safe to have during pregnancy because it does not use radiation. It is also safe for people who are allergic to contrast dye because it does not use dye.

A breast ultrasound is most often done to find out if a problem found by a mammogram or physical exam of the breast may be a cyst filled with fluid or a solid tumor. Breast ultrasound is not usually done to screen for breast cancer. This is because it may miss some early signs of cancer. An example of early signs that may not show up on ultrasound are tiny calcium deposits called microcalcifications. Are pregnant. Mammography uses radiation, but ultrasound does not.

This makes it safer for the fetus. Your healthcare provider may also use ultrasound to look at nearby lymph nodes, help guide a needle during a biopsy, or to remove fluid from a cyst.

Breast ultrasound may miss small lumps or solid tumors that are commonly found with mammography. Being obese or having very large breasts may make the ultrasound less accurate.

You may have risks depending on your specific health condition.