X-Rays Made Easy

What is It?

    Mammograms are an x-ray of the breast, commonly used to find breast cancer in women and/or certain diseases of the lungs.  It is also known as mastography, uses low energy x-rays, around 30 kVp, and is often used as a screening and diagnostic tool.  The difference between screening and a diagnostic is that during screening, there is usually one x-ray to check for any symptoms/cancer, while a diagnostic is usually several angled x-rays of detected cancer or a disease.  It uses small doses of ionizing radiation to create images.  Ultrasound, ductography, PEMs, and MRIs are tools that are used along with mammograms to find cancer/disease.

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History

    In 1913, German surgeon Albert Salomon attempted to visualize breast cancer through radiography, and that was the origin of the mammogram. It was until 1930 when Stafford L. Warren had confirmed the usefulness of the mammogram.  Warren had emphasized how the tool could compare the right and left breasts side-by-side, which is an important aspect of the tool. In 1949, Raul Leborgne who was a radiologist from Uruguay, introduced the technique of compression.  In the late 1950’s, Robert L. Egan, a Houston, Texas radiologist, had introduced a technique using a fine-grain intensifying screen and industrial film to produce clearer x-ray images.

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How It Works

    A standard mammogram uses a machine that only looks at breast tissue. These x-rays don’t go through tissue easily, so the machine uses 2 plates that compress the breast in order to spread the tissue apart, thus giving a better picture of the breast. This also allows for less radiation to be used, ultimately becoming safer for the patient. There are also several different types of Mammograms. A digital mammogram is similar to a standard mammogram in the process. The compression technique is when two plates compress/flatten the breast so that the tissue is spread apart (since breast tissue was hard for the x-ray to get through) and that less radiation can be used during the x-ray process, and it also allowed the image to come out clearer. Both use a machine that compresses the breast and takes pictures, however digital mammograms save the images as a file on a computer rather than printing it on a large film. One of the newest types of mammograms is a breast tomosynthesis, also known as a 3D mammography. For this mammogram, the breast tissue is compressed and a machine takes multiple low dose x-rays while moving around the breast. This then creates a 3D image of the breast as opposed to the 2D images of a standard mammogram. This allows for the doctor to see the breast tissue more clearly.

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Effects on Women

    Mammograms have definitely improved the detection of breast cancer.  It has decreased the amounts of deaths from breast cancer for women between the ages of 40-74.  However, women under the age of 40 have not improved or declined as far as benefits go.  There are also false-positive results, where the mammograms are seen as abnormal, but there is no present cancer (usually happens with younger women), and false-negative results, in which the mammograms appear normal, but there is cancer present.  Radiation exposure is also another risk that comes from mammograms, as it does from all x-rays.  It is important to use this beneficial technology safely, so that the risk of breast cancer declines.