I’ve never had a mammogram so I actually don’t know how it works. Only heard the jokes about how they squish your breasts and that it hurts. We were talking about how men can have breast cancer so why don’t they get mammograms? (Maybe they do). Then we laughed as we pretended to slip a tiny man boob into an imaginary mammogram machine (that I’ve never seen).
So I thought they can do X-rays and stuff. Why do they *have* to torture you to get the results. Did some sick doctor invent the machine, laughing the whole time about how evil and unnecessary it is? /s
Biology tag? Idk.
In: Biology
I’ve been a registered mammographer for over 30 years. There are many reasons we compress the tissue. 1)The thinner the tissue, the less radiation it takes to penetrate.
2) To hold the breast motionless in case the patient breathes or moves. Even the slightest motion or movement of the breast can blur structures we are trying to see.. in mammography we are looking for things often not bigger than grains of sand.
3) most importantly, simply the fewer layers of soft tissue we have to see through, the more accurate your exam is.
The way I explain it to my patients is to imagine that you are kneading bread and you loose your ring. Are you going to stare at the dough or are you going to spread it out so that you can locate your ring. In mammography, we are spreading out the tissue to locate the cancer.
Ok, I’m going to try to give a real ELI5 answer.
Imagine having a bag full of marbles and you are looking for one with sparkles instead of the colored waves. When you look inside the bag, they’re all jumbled together, so you can’t really see the one you are looking for. If you take that bag and put it on a table, everything in the bag will spread out, allowing you to look easier. Still, some are clumped on top of each other. Now, if you were able to then use your hand to separate them out any marbles that are still on top of each other, it would be a lot easier. This helps explain the compression.
Depending on how well lighted you room is will also allow you find it even easier. Too little light, and you can’t make out the difference. Too much light, and it can be blinding. You want just the right light level to help you look for something. This is the ELI5 for the x-rays used for the test.
I’m a breast radiologist. The breast is compressed for a few reasons:
1- The thinner the breast is, the lower the dose of radiation (which is really low to begin with for a mammo).
2- Compression spreads out breast tissue, making the mammo easier for us to interpret and also making suspicious findings more conspicuous. For bone x rays, compression won’t do anything since you can’t really compress bone.
3. Compression helps us have more uniform and consistent images from year to year, making comparison to prior exams easier and new findings more obvious.
Men do get mammos but generally only if they feel a lump or have bloody nipple discharge. Male breast cancer is very rare, which makes it so screening for it is not cost effective in the general population.
There are several reasons for compression. The compression spreads out the glandular (dense) tissue of the breast. so that it is no longer superimposed over itself. When glandular tissue is superimposed it can resemble a mass or hide a mass or microcalcifications (indications of possible cancer before there is a visible mass). Masses maintain their shape when compressed, breast tissue changes shape.
The compression also reduces motion artifacts. It keeps the breast from moving. It takes very little motion to cause a blurry mammogram. This is also why you hold your breath. Radiologists need to see fine details and motion blurs those details.
Compression also reduces the amount of radiation that is used during the mammogram. The thicker the body part, the more radiation is used.
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At Engineering school I attended a seminar by a local Healthcare company on their new product: a track specifically designed for MRIs in order to obtain the same info as a traditional rad-squishy-boob mammogram (or similar info regarding the concerning tissue).
This track could be easily adjusted to fit a wide variety of bubbies without the need for prolonged flattening. There were just an array of wire coils that would fit snug against the flesh.
Its seems to me that the traditional mammogram is a cheap and uncomfortable way to find out if one needs an MRI. Obviously availablity and cost are a barrier for just going in for the MRI without the flat rad blast, but I look forward to the day where the old fashioned way will be one less uncomfortable nuisance to all female kind.
kinda like pounding a chicken or butterflying, uniform thickness makes it cook evenly, or as the analogy translates, so the mass differential doesn’t throw a false positive.
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In addition to what everyone else has said about uniform thickness, the compression also helps spread out the tissue and separate it from the body. An mammogram is a 2d image of a 3d structure. Compressing the breast helps with tissue being superimposed. Mammograms also include tissue from the armpit area where some lymph nodes are. By pulling that tissue away from the body and holding it in place, it’s able to be imaged. Compression also helps with motion. It’s very important to have no motion which can blur the radiographs. A slight movement could ruin the image, requiring a retake and thus basically doubling the dose.
Doctors of Reddit: why is MRI not used for these kinds of diagnostics. Is it cost or performance?
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