Abnormal Mammogram

An abnormal mammogram is a cause of worry and you need to know what to do right away.

A mammogram is a test where X-Rays are used to check the breast tissue. Each breast is pressed between X-Ray plates and the X-ray of the breast is taken. The test takes only about fifteen minutes and is only mildly uncomfortable.

A breast cancer mammogram should be done as soon as a woman reaches forty years of age—sooner if there is a strong family history of breast cancer. Mammograms have been done for more than thirty years to help women and the womans health care provider detect the presence of breast cancer.

You should talk to your doctor to know how often you should have a breast cancer mammogram. A mammogram can be a breast cancer sign that needs checking out. If you have an abnormal mammogram, you should see your womans health provider to see what you should do.

What your woman's health care provider should tell you about your abnormal mammogram:

• A breast cancer mammogram can show that you have a lump in your breast. This would look like a white area on a mammogram.
• A breast cancer mammogram can also show that you have abnormal calcium deposits in the breast. Abnormal calcium deposits in the breast can be a breast cancer sign that needs further looking at. They look like bright white spots on a mammogram.
• A mammogram can show abnormal “stroma” or scar tissue in the breast which needs looking at.

Your doctor will probably recommend that you have a biopsy or a needle biopsy of your breast. With a needle biopsy, the doctor will insert a needle into the lump under ultrasound. If there is fluid in your breast lump, the doctor will suck it out and check it under the microscope.

If no breast cancer cells are found, you probably don’t have breast cancer. The lump was just a breast cyst and nothing further needs to be done.

If the breast lump is solid, the doctor will suck out some of the lump’s tissue and examine it under the microscope. If the cells are cancerous, further work needs to be done.

Sometimes a mammogram lump is very suspicious. In such cases, doctors decide to take the lump out rather than using a needle biopsy.

The doctor uses local anesthesia to numb the breast area and the breast lump is removed completely. A microscope is used to check the cells of the breast tissue under the microscope. If it is cancerous, your womans health provider will discuss the further options.

A mammogram may not be able to tell if they are cancerous if you have many cysts in your breast (or even one cyst),. Your doctor can then use an ultrasound to see if the cyst is solid or just a cyst. If it is a cyst, the doctor may take the fluid out and test it. If the lump is solid, a needle biopsy or a lumpectomy (removal of a lump) can be performed.

What if the biopsy is positive?

Any time a biopsy shows cancer cells, you have a decision to make. Your doctor will help you make that decision. The decision can affect your breast cancer prognosis so you need to think carefully about what to do.

Some women decide just to have a lumpectomy, especially if the breast lump is very small and the cancerous tissue is not very angry-looking under the microscope.

If you don’t want a lumpectomy, you can have a simple mastectomy. The breast is removed along with lymph nodes in the armpit area. You can have a partial mastectomy, where a portion of the breast is removed. You can have a modified radical mastectomy, where some muscle is taken from beneath the breast along with breast tissue.

If the breast or part of the breast is removed, you can have a reconstruction done at the time of the removal of cancerous tissue. A reconstruction is when the doctor puts saline or silicone implants in the space where the breast tissue was removed. It can make the breast look like a normal breast after you recover from the surgery.

The decision you make regarding your treatment for breast cancer is a decision you and your doctor must make together. You need to know the breast cancer prognosis for each of these treatments for breast cancer.

If you have an abnormal mammogram and a cancer is removed from it, you should have regular mammograms of the remaining breast and the breast that was partially removed. You don’t need a mammogram on one side if the entire breast was removed on the cancerous side.

Written by Dr. Christine Traxler
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