Mammography

Mammography is important because in its earliest stages breast cancer may not be palpable; it may be too small to feel as a lump or tissue change. Mammography can help detect these changes two years or more before you would feel them. Physical examination is also important because premenopausal breast tissue is often dense and fibrous, which may decrease the reliability of mammography for young women.

If you notice any change in your breast (such as a lump or other texture change, breast pain, skin dimpling, or nipple discharge), see your doctor. Mammography or other diagnostic tests may be recommended to evaluate the changes taking place. The majority of these changes are due to benign-that is, no cancerous--conditions, but you'll be glad you checked.

If a lump is detected after the mammography is done, it may be essential to take a biopsy for the final diagnosis.

Highlights:

• OPDOSE optimizes X-ray dose and image quality..
• OPCOMP determines the optimum degree of compression needed to produce uniform tautness, based on individual breast characteristics.
• Stereo tactic biopsy attachment.

Patient Benefits:

• It gives very high resolution films so that even the smallest of cancers can be easily detected
• The machine itself decides the optimum compression to be given to the patients. This enables good quality films with least discomfort to the patient.
• There is automatic decompression so that once the exposure is done, the breasts are automatically decompressed.

Thus the patient experiences discomfort only for a few seconds.