The mammography device in our hospital is also commonly used as a diagnostic test for the purpose of determining the location and characteristics of the suspected mass found in the breast during breast examination. The mammography device in our hospital is also commonly used as a diagnostic test for the purpose of determining the location and characteristics of the suspected mass found in the breast during breast examination.

At this stage, an issue that necessarily needs to be specified primarily is the fact that, the addition of mammography breast exam increases the possibility of an early diagnosis. Breast examination in our hospital is carried out by our general surgeon who is very experienced in this field. 

Why do we perform routine mammography?

Breast cancer is a common cancer seen in women. The second leading cause of cancer related deaths for women is breast cancer, after lung cancer in most countries despite the statistics vary among countries. Statistics show that, one out of every 12 women will develop breast cancer at some point during their life and one of every 25 women who get the disease would lose their life because of this. 

The purpose of screening tests is to determine the presence of a disease in advance, or to detect the disease early in its course.This makes important contributions to the reduction of problems associated with the disease. The reason why doctors highly recommend regular mammography is because thanks to this test the death risk associated with the disease can be reduced by 70% with the early diagnosis of breast cancer. 

How often should routine mammograms be performed?

Today,  the recommendation is to start screening at the age of 40 for women with no risk factors for breast cancer and repeat one in two years until the age of 50 years, then once a year.

The mammography will be repeated if a problem is detected at breast examination during routine gynecologic examinations or breast examination made every month by the woman on her own and this is verified by examination of a doctor.

Routine mammography is not recommended for the women younger than thirty years old because it is difficult to view the breast as the breast tissue is dense in this age range, and on the other hand, the occurrence of breast cancer is quite low.

Issues in the breast tissue of young women are often illuminated with breast examination and breast ultrasonography .

Routine mammography intervals are set by the General Surgeon for the women who have individuals with breast cancer or who have certain risk factors for developing breast cancer themselves.

How and when is it conducted?

Mammography should be performed during a period when the breast tissue can be viewed best in the menstrual cycle.

Mammography is a mere examination conducted with a device called mammography with the help of a special X-ray device by compressing both breasts and taking images of various levels and segments. The aim of breast tissue compression during mammography is to obtain more qualified images and to reduce the dose of radiation to the lowest level absorbed by the woman. 

The obtained X-ray images are then evaluated by a radiologist and a report is issued containing the findings and recommendations. Radiology specialist takes into account the images of the previous years when making the assessment. For this reason, it is very important that the mammographic images and reports are conserved and presented to the radiologist regularly.

Mammographic Report

When reviewing these images, the radiologist takes into account several characteristics of the images obtained that will determining what will be written in the report: whether there is mass appearance of the breast tissue in the image, are there tissue calcification fields, what is the density and the distribution of the density of breast tissue within the breast tissue, the thickness of the skin of the breast, the situation of lymph nodes in the armpit. If there are no findings related to the breast cancer, the case is reported as “normal mammography findings”. 

In the case of abnormal findings in the images, Radiology Specialist usually adds recommendations in the report. This is specified as “advanced examination is recommended” if there is an image with breast cancer suspicion. If the mass is detected, it is often seen in mammography reports that “ultrasonography examination is recommended” to determine whether the mass is in the cystic structure. 

The final decision whether mammography is normal or not is made by a doctor who has done breast examination and knows the woman’s medical details.

Breast Ultrasonography

Nowadays mammography and breast ultrasonography are performed together in most cases. The most important reason for this is the ability of the breast ultrasonography to distinguish cystic and solid formations in the breast tissue from each other.