checking for breast lumps
by Jenny Bryan
All women are advised to be breast aware, whatever their age. It's essential to get any lumps you find checked out by an expert.
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testing, testing
It's impossible to be sure that a breast lump is harmless unless you have it checked by a specialist. Your GP can feel your lump and may think it's a fibroadenoma or a cyst. But he or she can't be sure unless you have some tests. To get the lump tested, you'll need to go to an outpatient clinic at your local hospital. You may need two or three appointments, depending on what type of lump you have.
If your GP feels that you should be seen urgently, you will get your first appointment at the hospital within two weeks of going to your GP. If your GP thinks it's less urgent, it will take longer to get an appointment.
Most lumps show up on a breast X-ray (mammogram) but, as Nikki West explains, younger breasts are more dense than older breasts, so lumps show up better on ultrasound. This uses harmless soundwaves to get pictures inside the body.
'Ultrasound tells us the shape of the lump, whether it's hard or solid or filled with fluid,' says Nikki. 'If it's a hard lump which we think is a fibroadenoma not a cancer, we'll usually put a fine needle into the lump to get a sample of blood cells just to be sure. If the lump is hard, uneven and craggy and we think it could be cancer, we'll do a core biopsy. This means taking a sample of the lump under local anaesthetic.'
If the ultrasound shows a fluid-filled breast cyst, a fine needle will be put in to drain the fluid. It can be clear or coloured. When all the fluid has been drained, the lump should go down. If there's any lump left, the doctor will take a core biopsy to check that the cells are normal.
Whatever comes out of a breast lump, it needs to be examined in the laboratory, even if it's just fluid. A cell specialist needs to be sure that any cells in the sample are normal and not cancerous.
(December 2002, resources updated January 2005)
