Benefits and Risks – Breast Ultrasound

Benefits

• A breast ultrasound exam in noninvasive.
• Occasionally, an ultrasound exam may be temporarily uncomfortable, but it is almost never painful.
• Ultrasound is widely available, easy-to-use and less expensive than other imaging methods.
• Ultrasound imaging is extremely safe and does not use any ionizing radiation.
• Ultrasound scanning gives a clear picture of soft tissues that do not show up well on x-ray images.
• Ultrasound imaging can help detect lesions in women with dense breasts.
• Ultrasound may help detect and classify a breast lesion that cannot be interpreted adequately through mammography alone.
• Using ultrasound, physicians are able to determine that many areas of clinical concern are due to normal tissue or benign cysts.

Risks

• A breast ultrasound examhas no known harmful effects on humans.
• Interpretation of a breast ultrasound examination may lead to additional procedures such as follow-up ultrasound or biopsy. Many of the areas thought to be of concern only on ultrasound turn out to be non-cancerous.