Diagnostic Mammography

A diagnostic mammography requires additional views of the breast in addition to the regular two views that are performed as a screening study.

Diagnostic studies are performed to magnify< to get a closer look> at calcium deposits to determine if they need biopsy or if they can be watched.

Spot compression views are ordered when there is a density or area of "thick" tissue that needs to be looked at with more intense compression of he mammography paddles. It is not necessarily more painful to compress the breast, it is just a focused compression to determine if a density in the breast is real and requires US and possibly biopsy or if a region of thick tissue is just one piece of breast superimposed on another. <Mammograms are two dimensional pictures of a very 3-dimensional object, therefore tissue can hide other tissue unless you push it out of the way>

If there is a question about whether or not a region of density is real or not, your doctors will almost always recommend a biopsy of the region or additional films.