Pain during mammography: Implications for breast screening programmes

Andrews, Fiona

doi:10.1046/j.1440-1673.2001.00889.x

Cited by 49 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] Reducing the level of compression may limit this pain and encourage more women to keep a regular screening regimen. However, this reduced compression should not jeopardize the clinical utility of mammograms for detecting breast cancer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of breast compression on mass conspicuity in digital mammography

Saunders

Samei

2008

Medical Physics

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This study analyzed how the inherent quality of diagnostic information in digital mammography could be affected by breast compression. A digital mammography system was modeled using a Monte Carlo algorithm based on the Penelope program, which has been successfully used to model several medical imaging systems. First, the Monte Carlo program was validated against previous measurements and simulations. Once validated, the Monte Carlo software modeled a digital mammography system by tracking photons through a voxelized software breast phantom, containing anatomical structures and breast masses, and following photons until they were absorbed by a selenium-based flat-panel detector. Simulations were performed for two compression conditions (standard compression and 12.5% reduced compression) and three photon flux conditions (constant flux, constant detector signal, and constant glandular dose). The results showed that reduced compression led to higher scatter fractions, as expected. For the constant photon flux condition, decreased compression also reduced glandular dose. For constant glandular dose, the SdNR for a 4 cm breast was 0.60 +/- 0.11 and 0.62 +/- 0.11 under standard and reduced compressions, respectively. For the 6 cm case with constant glandular dose, the SdNR was 0.50 +/- 0.11 and 0.49 +/- 0.10 under standard and reduced compressions, respectively. The results suggest that if a particular imaging system can handle an approximately 10% increase in total tube output and 10% decrease in detector signal, breast compression can be reduced by about 12% in terms of breast thickness with little impact on image quality or dose.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of breast compression on mass conspicuity in digital mammography

Saunders

Samei

2008

Medical Physics

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“…For a high-quality mammography compression and good positioning are mandatory, but on the other hand, they can cause pain and discomfort to the patient which may deter her from having another examination [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of the radiographer on the pain felt during mammography

et al. 2003

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Mammography is the only useful examination in screening for breast cancer. Mortality from breast cancer can be reduced if women go regularly for a screening mammography. Moreover, it is still the key examination in diagnosis of breast diseases and in the follow-up of patients treated for breast cancer. Pain with mammography can deter women from going for regular screening or follow-up; therefore, it is important to reduce pain experience or discomfort from mammography. In this study we evaluate the impact of the "radiographer" on the pain risk during mammography by analysing questionnaires filled in by women and radiographers. Study results reveal that the opinion of the radiographer, the information and communication during the examination and the number of years of experience are important factors in pain and discomfort experience. The attitude of the radiographer plays an important role in the pain experience.

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“…Despite the benefits of breast cancer screening, a significant proportion of the eligible population choose not to use these services, most of which are free or subsidised. Reasons not to attend screening include lack of encouragement by physicians (Grady et al 1992;Nosek & Howland 1997;Miller et al 1998;George 2000), lack of perceived risk (Orton et al 1991;George 2000;Speedy & Hase 2000), fear (Thompson et al 1997), embarrassment (Orton et al 1991;Nosek & Howland 1997), inconvenience (Speedy & Hase 2000), insensitivity of health care workers (Nosek & Howland 1997;Thompson et al 1997;Williams et al 1997), pain or discomfort (Keemers-Gels et al 2000;Andrews 2001;Sapir et al 2003), physical disability (Nosek & Howland 1997), residence in a nursing home and dementia (Marwill et al 1996). Women with intellectual disabilities are among the least frequent users of screening mammography (Cowie & Fletcher 1998;Piachaud & Rohde 1998;Davies & Duff 2001), perhaps because the standard recruitment strategies are not suitable.…”

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confidence: 99%