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Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
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Tests and diagnosis
By Mayo Clinic staffTests to evaluate your condition may include:
- Clinical breast exam and physical exam. During this exam, your doctor checks for unusual areas in your breasts, visually and manually examining your breasts and the lymph nodes located in your lower neck and underarm area. If your medical history and the physical exam findings are consistent with normal breast changes, you may not need additional tests. If your doctor finds something unusual during your breast exam, he or she may ask you to return a few weeks later for reassessment.
- Mammography. If your doctor detects a breast lump or unusual thickening in your breast tissue, you need to undergo diagnostic mammography — an X-ray exam to evaluate a specific area of concern in your breast. Even if your physical exam is normal, your doctor may recommend mammography if you're age 30 or older to double-check for suspicious areas in your breast that may be too small to feel.
- Ultrasound. An ultrasound exam uses sound waves to produce images of your breasts and is often performed in conjunction with mammography. Women under age 30 might undergo ultrasound instead of mammography because ultrasound can better evaluate dense breast tissue — that is, tissue tightly packed with lobules, ducts and stroma (connective tissue) and less fat. Ultrasound is also particularly helpful in distinguishing between fluid-filled breast cysts and solid masses.
- Breast biopsy. A breast biopsy is a test during which a small sample of breast tissue is collected for microscopic analysis. If your doctor finds a suspicious breast lump, area of thickening or other unusual change during the clinical breast exam, you may be referred to a breast surgeon to discuss whether or not you should have a breast biopsy. If a suspicious area is seen during an imaging exam, the radiologist performing that exam may also perform a biopsy during the test.
