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Breast cancer, which accounts for 14% of all new cancer cases in India, is the most prevalent malignancy in women after skin cancer. Women between the ages of 55 and 64 are most likely to get breast cancer, and the risk rises...
Breast cancer, which accounts for 14% of all new cancer cases in India, is the most prevalent malignancy in women after skin cancer. Women between the ages of 55 and 64 are most likely to get breast cancer, and the risk rises with age.
The chance to detect breast cancer at an earlier stage is provided by the rising risk over time, raising the likelihood that a patient will be cured and lowering the side effects of the treatments. Breast cancer treatments are getting better and have helped lower mortality, yet mammograms have a bigger overall influence on death reductions than early diagnosis with these treatments.
Procedure/preparation for mammography
Mammography equipment needs to be properly calibrated and inspected for flaws. The medical physicist can help with recalibration if problems develop after a radiology technologist performs these quality control tests.
The patient's identity should be confirmed upon arrival, and they should be properly informed of the mammogram process. To provide accurate personal breast cancer risk assessment, the patient's family, medical, and surgical history should be evaluated.
The patient should specifically be checked for any family history of breast cancer, any changes related to the breast (such as the emergence of palpable lumps, tenderness, or skin changes), and any prior surgical intervention (such as breast augmentation or mammoplasty, needle/surgical biopsy, or axillary lymph node dissection).
The patient should remove any tops and be provided with a robe. Radiopaque skin markers should be used to label any elevated skin lesions, such as moles or scars from previous surgical procedures, to make them easier to identify and to prevent callbacks due to misunderstanding as masses or abnormal architectural distortion.
Finally, before starting the exam, the technologist must input the patient's data into the mammography machine.
Technique for conducting a mammography
The two standard perspectives used in screening mammography are called craniocaudal (CC) and mediolateral oblique (MLO), respectively, based on the direction the x-ray beam travels from the source to the detector.
The patient's breast is placed on the image detector for the CC view, and the paddle is used to compress the breast in a superior-inferior manner. The image should ideally encompass the cleavage region and portions of the pectoralis major muscle (seen in about 30% of cases), and there should be at least some inframammary tissues on the detector.
The machine is typically oriented between 40 and 60 degrees for the MLO vision. Due to the inclusion of the axillary tail and axilla, this is preferred over a true lateral in routine screening. Similar to before, as much of the breast tissues as possible—including the inframammary fold and as much posterior tissue as is practical—are applied to the image detector.
To ensure the comparability of the various images, a line drawn from the nipple to the chest wall should be within 1 cm of the same line drawn on the CC view.
