How to Use Ultrasound to Detect Breast Cancer

Recently, the American Cancer Society revised its breast cancer screening guidelines to recommend the use of ultrasound to detect breast cancer early, in addition to annual mammograms. Furthermore, the use of ultrasound may be beneficial for women who present high risk factors for breast cancer or who have dense breast tissue. Learn how to use ultrasound to detect breast cancer.

Things You'll Need

• Appointment for a physical examination
• Referral for an ultrasound

Instructions

1. Visit your health care practitioner for a complete physical examination, including a breast examination. Depending on the results and your risk factors, discuss the possibility of the use of ultrasound for early breast cancer detection with your doctor.

2. Ask your doctor to provide a referral to have an ultrasound taken, if your examination and medical history warrant it. The referral should be in writing and indicate the specific reason for having the ultrasound done (such as the discovery of an questionable lump or other irregularity).

3. Feel confident in the use of ultrasound to detect breast cancer since it does not involve the use of radiation, which can have a cumulative effect and present certain risks. In addition, women report a preference for ultrasound screening since the breasts are not compressed as they are during a mammogram, which can be uncomfortable.

4. Be aware that ultrasound uses acoustic impedance, which measures the density of specific tissue, as well as the velocity of the wavelength around the tissue. This reveals shape and texture, whereas a mammogram only produces shadows in response to density.

5. Expect that your doctor should be able to determine whether a mass or lump found in breast tissue is malignant or benign from the use of ultrasound in most cases. Mammography cannot make this distinction.

Tips & Warnings

• The use of ultrasound has proven to be effective to detect smaller breast cancer tumors than mammography alone, making diagnosis and treatment possible before the cancer has a chance to become invasive.

• Ultrasound is particularly helpful for women who have dense breast tissue. This is because dense tissue and cancer both tend to show up as white on a mammogram. However, on an ultrasound, the cancer is dark and only the dense tissue appears as white.

• Another term for breast ultrasound is sonomammography.

• The drawback to using ultrasound to detect breast cancer early is that it produces more false positive results than other methods, which can mean unnecessary biopsies. In fact, the false-positive rate for mammograms is only 1 to 2 percent, while the rate for ultrasound is around 2 to 6 percent.