Many women equate ultrasound screening with pregnancy, having undergone the painless procedure on their growing abdomen to get a precious first look at baby. But don’t be surprised if your doctor soon orders an ultrasound for something entirely different – the health of your breasts.
The same tool that so precisely monitors and measures a growing fetus – without exposing mother or child to radiation – is also being employed in the detection of breast cancer. New research shows that ultrasound picks up small tumors that mammograms sometimes miss.
Although mammograms are still considered the gold standard for breast cancer screening, ultrasounds are increasingly being recommended as an adjunct in women at high risk for the disease, with good reason. In one recent study of ultrasound screening on 2,809 women, doctors found cancer in 12 breasts that mammography had failed to detect.