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Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
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Tests and diagnosis
By Mayo Clinic staffTests to evaluate your condition may include:
- Clinical breast exam and physical exam. During this exam, your doctor checks for unusual areas in your breasts, visually and manually examining your breasts and the lymph nodes located in your lower neck and underarm area. Your doctor will probably listen to your heart and lungs and check your chest wall and abdomen to be certain the pain originates from your breast and isn't related to some other condition. If your medical history and the physical exam reveal nothing unusual, you may not need additional tests.
- Mammography. If your doctor detects a breast lump, unusual thickening in your breast tissue, or a focused area of pain, you need to undergo mammography — an X-ray exam of your breast tissue. Even if your physical exam is normal, your doctor may recommend mammography if you're age 30 or older, to double-check for suspicious areas in your breast that may be too small to feel.
- Ultrasound. An ultrasound exam uses sound waves to produce images of your breasts and is often performed in conjunction with mammography. Younger women — those under age 30 — might undergo ultrasound to evaluate a focused area of pain even if the physical exam appears normal.
- Breast biopsy. Suspicious breast lumps, areas of thickening or unusual areas seen during imaging exams may require a biopsy before your doctor can make a diagnosis. During a biopsy, your doctor (radiologist) obtains a small sample of breast tissue from the suspicious area and sends it for microscopic analysis.
