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Approach to Screening Mammogram w/DBT - Left Breast Mass

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In this case, we are showing a screening

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mammogram from a 46-year-old woman.

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We'll pull down our first standardized views to get

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an overall sense of breast positioning and image quality.

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These look like, uh, high-quality images, right?

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Good pectoralis muscles.

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Great view of the IMF here, both MLO views.

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And right away, um, we can see that it

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looks like there's something here in

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the lateral aspect of the left breast.

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Let me pull down just the left breast images.

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Again, we can see what we would

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call an asymmetry at this point.

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So we only see it in one view, lateral aspect

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of the left breast, and we get the sense that

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perhaps it is up here in the superior portion

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of the left breast, making this at least a

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focal asymmetry or potentially a mass.

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So far, based on our view, we would say this

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was perhaps either one o'clock or two o'clock

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in the left breast and approximately middle

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depth. We switch over to the, uh, DBT slices.

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Um, I'll start at the inferior portion of the stack.

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Moving superiorly, our abnormality comes

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into view in more sharp focus, right?

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Um, we can see that it has, um, at

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least partially circumscribed margins,

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maybe some that are obscured.

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And similarly, on the MLO view, we

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see those circumscribed margins.

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Maybe some portion of it is obscured, and

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we would therefore, um, call this a mass.

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And if we went, um, in our reporting,

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we would say there's a mass, two o'clock

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position or one o'clock position.

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Middle depth. Additional imaging is required.

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So this patient, uh, came on to

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get a diagnostic mammogram.

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We did additional spot CC and

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spot MLO tomosynthesis views.

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Switch over to our DBT stack.

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Bigger.

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As I scroll through, moving from inferior to

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superior, this again comes into view with similar

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imaging characteristics—partly obscured, partly

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circumscribed margins,

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and same kind of thing on the left

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breast as well—partly circumscribed,

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partly obscured margins and shape.

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So if we're telling our, uh, grapher

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where we wanna look, we would say

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left breast, maybe one or two o'clock.

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And it's always a little bit difficult to measure,

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um, figure out how to distance from nipple,

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but I tend to do it in one view, um, sort of.

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Trying to think about it as if

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I were holding the transducer.

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So I would expect this would be somewhere in the

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range of, you know, five centimeters from the nipple.

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Maybe a little bit less, depending on, uh, this one

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looks like more four centimeters from the nipple.

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So we might say, look at two o'clock,

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four centimeters from the nipple.

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And I'm expecting to see a mass that

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is approximately 16 millimeters.

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So this patient subsequently went on to ultrasound.

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I'll show you those images here.

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So the sonographer looked at

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left breast, two o'clock position.

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They found something three

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centimeters from the nipple.

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It sits in the trans orientation.

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We see this, uh, mass sort of in

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the more deeper part of the breast.

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Always, depth is a little bit more difficult

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to identify on ultrasound, and we see that it

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measures about 20 millimeters on ultrasound.

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Um, which approximately, um, matches

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up with what we see on the mammogram.

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Um, identifying this left mass.

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So our excellent skills at localization helped

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us identify this mass, helped our sonographer

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find it more efficiently, uh, and helps us

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evaluate whether this matches up, uh, entirely.

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This was subsequently biopsied and was a fibroadenoma.

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Editorial Note

Faculty

Ryan W. Woods, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Radiology

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Tags

Women's Health

Ultrasound

Tomosynthesis

Oncologic Imaging

Mammography

Breast