Waiting for results

[countrygirl]

Last wednesday I had a mammo and a breastscan privately and thursday morning I saw a breast surgeon and he had the mammo with him - he said that nothing to worry about on the mammo - I had serious damage to my right breast in car accident 8 yrs ago and he said he could see effects of that but only what was expected and a tiny tiny cyst in same area but he said he was totally certain in was a cyst as it had a halo round it. He also did a thorough manual exam of breasts and chest wall ( most painful bit!).
He said the breastscan which is more sensitive than mammo takes 3-5 working days to get results so expecting them this week.

He said it was unlikely but they may request a ultrasound of cyst and if so not to worry BUt until I get the breastscan results in I am getting more and more panicky.

Straight after I had seen surgeon I was happy that no huge galloping cancer had been found and I know from experience - my mother - that mammo will pick up even tiny specks of cancer - but as I am now waiting for my scan results and I getting more and more frightened.

[jojo2316]

so what is a breastscan? I've only heard of a mammogram and an ultrasound for breasts..... is it an MRI??

[countrygirl]

A breastcan is infrared in other words thermography and its only available privately at the moment although nhs is evaluating it to be used in conjuction with mammo as it is 98% effective at detecting breastcancer rather than 89% that mammo is. It is also useful for young women with family history of breast cancer as they cannot have mammography or for anyone who cannot have mammo for whatever reason. It isn't expensive £100 for the scan and report but they recommend you have it together with mammo if you are old enough as thats the best combination.

There is only one company providing the scans at present breasthealthuk and all their scanners are in south or midlands so we ladies from up north have to travel quite a long way to get one! They are hoping to have the scanners in northern private hospitals for next year. There was a good article in Daily Mail about it a few months ago.