Lots of people have had this experience and it usually turns out just fine.

Mammograms don't "see" the breast tissue very well for those of us who have dense breasts (which is actually about 75% of pre-menopausal women and 40%-50% of older women, so it's very common). So it appears that something was unclear on your mammogram, and you are being called back for additional screening - likely an ultrasound and probably a diagnostic mammogram (a magnified view of the area of concern) - so that the Radiologist can take a closer look.

Most of the time, it turns out that there was nothing of concern. It could be as simple as the way your breast was squished in the mammogram machine, which caused a ripple to appear in the imaging. But if something does show up, if it's not worrisome, then you will be monitored, with a call-back for repeat imaging in 6 months. Or if there is even just a 2% risk that there might be cancer, then you will be sent for a biopsy. This is done most often to rule out the presence of cancer, not because the Radiologist expect to find cancer. 75%-80% of biopsies are benign.

So, at this point in the process, the odds are about 95% that you'll be fine. Look at this chart. You are sitting at that very first 10%, with a call-back after a screening mammogram.

Can I ask, how old are you? And is this your first mammogram or have you had others?

CEDM is a fairly new technology. It's great that your facility has it - they probably didn't have it last year when you had your callback. I wouldn't read anything into it except that your facility has moved to a better technology for callbacks for women with dense breasts (and maybe all callbacks). There is no reason to assume a greater level of concern because your facility is choosing to use this technology.

Contrast Enhanced Digital Mammography

https://www.sbi-online.org/RESOURCES/WhitePapers/T...

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"In women with dense breasts, Cheung et al demonstrated that CEDM is superior to mammography in both sensitivity with improvement from 71.5% to 92.7% and specificity from 51.8% to 67.9%(16). ...

...With the promising data in the diagnostic setting, a frequent use of CEDM is to further evaluate either clinical or imaging abnormalities from abnormal screening exams. This has the additional advantage of doubling as a preoperative extent-of-disease exam in those patients who are diagnosed with cancer. Due to its superior specificity in this setting, CEDM has the potential to reduce unnecessary biopsy of benign low suspicion (BI-RADS 4a) masses."

Architectural distortion found on a mammogram

https://breast-cancer.ca/archite-reast-mammo/

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"Breast cancer commonly causes architectural distortion.

Architectural distortion uncommonly indicates cancer. More common is for architectural distortion to be 'imaginary' in the perception of the radiologist."

jjiry - wishing you the best tomorrow. It's hard to wait, but Beesie & Melissa have given you good answers.

hello there,

Reading through this and wanted to know if you had an outcome or results from your AD? I’m also experiencing AD and a “persistent asymmetry”. I had a wide excision 3 days ago and I’m waiting on my results. Curious to hear how you are doing. God bless, Ashlry