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
Doctors of Reddit: why is MRI not used for these kinds of diagnostics. Is it cost or performance?
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.
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.
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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.
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