Imaging Tests For Breast Pain Don't Have Significant Benefit, Study Shows

If you're a woman experiencing breast pain, one of your first instincts might be to ask for an imaging test to see if something is wrong, right?

Well, a new study shows that imaging tests for breast pain might not have any significant benefit. The research, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that for women with a totally normal breast exam, having an MRI, mammogram or ultrasound didn't seem to make a difference in any decisions on the part of the doctor and the patient.

"While some have suggested that doing further testing in women with breast pain will help to reassure the patient, we did not find this to be the case," study researcher Mary Beth Howard, MS, an MD candidate at the Boston University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Researchers noted that there are no set guidelines on how breast pain should be handled by a doctor, though it might make some women feel more at ease if they have an imaging test done.

The study involved 916 women who had breast pain and were referred to the Boston Medical Center between 2006 and 2009. The researchers looked at how the women who received imaging tests were diagnosed and treated, compared with women who didn't receive imaging tests.

In total, six of the women had cancer. All of them had another sign of cancer -- like cancer in the other breast found by a screening mammogram, or a lump in the breast. Researchers also found that for the women who got the imaging tests just for then breast pain, there were the added negative factors like having to visit the doctor more times, having to undergo more mammograms and being tested more times.

According to the Mayo Clinic, breast pain very rarely means that a woman has breast cancer, though you should still see a doctor if you feel it. The feelings of pain can range, from breast tenderness, to a burning sensation, to tightness in breast tissue.

There are multiple possible causes of breast pain, ranging from hormones and your menstrual cycle, to breast cysts or trauma, to certain medication use, to breast size, the Mayo Clinic reported.

Tests to diagnose the cause of breast pain include a physical exam, where a doctor will check the breasts and lymph nodes, as well as other parts of the body close to the breast -- like the heart, or lungs -- to make sure they are not the cause of the pain. If there's a breast lump or thickening or pinpointed pain, the doctor might then choose to do mammography, an ultrasound or a biopsy to rule out cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Comments

[Sophie the Cat]

12:46 AM on 03/10/2012

Pain was the only way I knew something was wrong. The mammogram could not see my tumor, but the ultrasound could see the tumor in the area that hurt. It was stage 2 breast cancer, and the pain is what led to my diagnosis before it advanced any further.

[ipackageu]

10:10 PM on 03/08/2012

I had a slight pain in my breast and had a mamogram which showed nothing was wrong but I insisted and had an ultrasound the same day and guess what -- i just had a masectomy to remove a 7 cm lobular cancer -- if I had not persisted I would have been dead within months. This article is bogus -- if you feel something in your breast run to your Dr and insist on any and all tests to make sure

[Sharon Hanson]

07:56 PM on 03/09/2012

Although this was good for you it was not good for me. I had annual MRIs with gadolinium based contrasting agents. Gadolinium is a toxic metal. And although I love my family and don't want to die some days I am so sick that the thought has crossed my mind. I sincerely would rather have cancer than this disease. I'm glad for you, don't get me wrong but all these scans take their toll too and thermography and proteomics are non-invasive and detect disease at a much earlier stage. We need to push through approval of these tests once and for all and stop these expensive toxic scans.

[riverdivine]

07:06 PM on 03/10/2012

So sorry for what you're going through. :( You must feel so betrayed by your doctors... :( What your story, and the 2 brave women above, as well, shows is that we can't trust doctors, or the cancer "industry"'s screening or treatment protocols, at all. In fact, it appears to me (from my own personal experience through this journey of breast cancer) that the "professionals" don't know much about anything, so its best to rely on one's own research, and ultimately, one's own intuition and body wisdom. I hate to think that there is a cancer "industry"/business profitting from this disease, but it is true, nonetheless. Dr. Christine Horner, Susan Weed, Suzanne Somers, Dr.Mercola, are just a few names that will lead to increased enlightment on this issue... Blessings, all women.~

[Boobuzuela]

06:38 PM on 03/08/2012

This gentleman has the proper diagnostic equipment for diagnosing breast pain.

http://www.demoties.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Free-Mammograms-Demotivational-poster.jpg