If you’re unlucky enough to be diagnosed with breast cancer then there’ll be various options open to you depending on the stage of cancer and just where in the breast it’s located. If you’ve caught it early then there’s an incredibly high probability that you’ll be fine, if not then doctors will want to get an accurate look at just what they’re dealing with. They’ll do this through the use of several tests:
Imaging Tests
The most common of these tests is the mammogram which is a type of specialist X-ray which looks at your breast and differentiated the cancerous tissue. There are also ultrasounds and bone scans which can be used to search for cancers. Recently, by using a heat sensitive camera and a specially designed algorithm, Doctors have been able to identify cancerous tissue from other masses found in the breasts!
Node Biopsy
A biopsy is the removal of a portion of tissue using a needle. Doctors can then take this tissue and analyse it far more effectively with a far broader range of tests. With breast cancer a biopsy will probably be taken from a lymph node as it’s always a concern that the cancer will spread to these nodes and then the rest of the body.
CT Guided Biopsy
By using using a CT scan and the images provided by such, a needle is guided into the actual cancer itself. Again a portion of tissue will be removed for further analyses by doctors.