Evaluating Women with Implants
She had breast implants years ago and now she’s nervous: I wonder if that lump that my doctor feels is related to my implant or if it’s something more serious….
Imaging the Patient with Breast Cancer
Do you have trees in your yard? If you see a diseased area on a branch of a dogwood tree, you will likely also look up and down that branch…
The Painful and the Palpable
Four o’clock and you are winding down the day. The mammography technologist brings you a mammogram of a 41-year-old woman with a breast lump. It looks negative. You ask the…
Measuring and Managing Breast Cancer Risk
You’re about to sign off on a negative screening mammogram when her history catches your eye. She’s only 32 years old. Her sister was just diagnosed with breast cancer at…
Finding Cancers in Dense Tissue
A blind date: Things are going well, but really, this person could be a serial killer for all you know. How do you get to know him? Sometimes it’s easy,…
Expanding the Differential Diagnosis: Going Beyond IDC-NOS
So you found the architectural distortion on her screening mammogram. She had a diagnostic workup and you found a small abnormal area, no more than 1 or 2 cm. Ultrasound-guided core…
The Male Breast
A sheepish older guy with a breast lump is in your department. Without even seeing him, you know that the most likely diagnosis is gynecomastia. But let’s make sure that…
Evaluation of Nipple Discharge
She’s a little embarrassed. And she’s more than a little nervous. She saw a spot of blood in her bra. Does she have cancer? Her mammogram last month was normal,…
Calcifications Made Easy
Your children have finally learned to get their own cereal in the morning. But yikes, what is that stuff on the kitchen floor? You start to reach for a paper…
Breast Anatomy and Physiology: Recognizing Normal Changes
A young woman presented with a palpable lump in her right axilla. She was 3 months pregnant and terrified. Her sister had been diagnosed with stage III breast cancer at…
