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Normal Findings - Screening Mammogram - Deodorant Artifact Example 2

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In this case, we have a 50-year-old female

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presenting for screening, uh, mammography.

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Um, looking at overall, we looking

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at image quality, as we always do.

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We can see this, right?

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MLO is a little bit, um, small

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in comparison to the left.

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Probably didn't get pulled in quite as much.

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Our technologist repeated the right MLO to attempt,

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try to get more pectoralis muscle in there.

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Didn't get a whole lot more,

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but at least we can verify.

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The technologist did try to do some more.

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Um, if we look at, uh, the MLO views only,

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for the moment already, we can see, um, some

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punctate, uh, calcifications look like they're

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projecting over both, uh, axillary regions.

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You might wonder if some of these have

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a, like a little bit more of a linear

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configuration, or maybe they're sort of a

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morphous calcifications in morphology.

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Certainly something that might be worrisome,

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um, in any other part of the breast.

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If we switch over to the DBT slices, however, we

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can see that, um, already on the lateralmost,

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uh, image slices, we can see some of that dense

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material which projects, uh, within the skin.

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We know it's within the skin because we're

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in the first few slices of the DBT stack.

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Um, and this is, uh, the very typical appearance for...

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Deodorant artifact.

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As I scroll through here, we'll see some of

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this, uh, deodorant artifact here in the sort

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of more posterior part of the breast, and we can

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see sort of this wave of, uh, material already

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all within the skin, um, as we move more, uh...

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Same is true on the other side.

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Again, we can ask our technologists

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to, um, have the patient, um, try to

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clean that area and repeat the images.

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Um, but in general, I would say in these cases

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where we already have the images acquired and

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potentially the patient has already gone on, uh,

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uh, and left the facility, um, this is a very small

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amount of deodorant artifact and really doesn't

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obscure or impede our ability to interpret the exam.

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And so we can probably just move on.

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Note that there is some deodorant artifact.

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And be okay with it.

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Um, in this case, there were no other findings

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that we needed to worry about, but interestingly,

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we do also see the deodorant artifact in

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the far lateral aspect on the CC view.

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Again, it has a very similar appearance,

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looking like amorphous or round calcifications,

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maybe some linear kind of distribution.

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Um, but as we scroll through again,

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as we get to the superior part of the breast,

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we can start to see some of those, uh,

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calcifications looking like they're within the skin.

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Um, certainly within a few slices, uh, the end

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of the imaging stack, and we can see those,

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uh, associated, uh, continuous fat deposits,

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which show we're very close to the skin.

Report

Faculty

Ryan W. Woods, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Radiology

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Tags

Women's Health

Tomosynthesis

Oncologic Imaging

Mammography

Breast

AI Technologies

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