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’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.
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