Diagnostic Mammography – Needs Extra Care and Support

By age 30, you should have your first mammography done, and after 40 it should be done once in a year. This suggestion is still controversial, but I will make it without hesitation. I am going to explain it in a moment. But first of all you must be wondering how screening mammograms are different from diagnostic mammograms.

Screening mammograms screen apparently normal breasts for breast area tumor. Two standard views are taken of the correct breast area and two of the left breast - a total of four views per patient. One view is used from above, the so-called cardio-caudal view; the other is taken from the side, the lateral view. In each view, it is important to visualize the entire breast. The radiologist or mammography reading your screening mammogram might recommend a diagnostic mammogram.

Usually, in diagnostic mammography, mammograms consists of a one-sided (right or left) mammogram taken with special views to enable the mammography to determine whether the abnormality that was seen on the screening film is suspicious enough to warrant a biopsy. The mammography reading the screening mammogram frequently will indicate what additional studies should be done to further evaluate the screening abnormality.

If you are asked to return to extra studies, then there is nothing to worry about, it never means that you have breast area tumor. It only means that your mammographer is just being extra careful for you. Mostly repeated diagnostic mammography doesn’t reveal tumor. I’ll advice you to read that sentence twice. If you are known as back to have a diagnostic mammogram, don't panic. Extra studies are often ordered simply to clarify your screening mammogram-for example, if the entire breast area was not visualized in one or both views.