Breast Exam

[Hopeful]

I saw my breast surgeon this morning for my regular bi-annual check-up and exam. She said everything was fine. I have my annual mammogram in April.

Since I have been a patient in their practice, I observed that the doctors in that office perform a clinical breast exam using a different technique than I have experienced when examined by gynecologists. I had not taken the time to ask her about it before, but today I did. I wanted to describe what she does, and see if anyone else here has a doctor perform their exams this way.

Rather than use the method that is taught by the American Cancer Society, which involves pressing flat from above in a small area and going around in circles, she runs her finger tips from the top to the bottom of the breast several times, working her way across the entire surface, and tracing the countour of the breast. She told me that she and her two colleagues, which are from three different age groups, all learned this method at the various places they had studied. She felt that it enabled them to feel something "abnormal" in the breast tissue more easily than the ACS method. She said the ACS method has women (and doctors who use it) feeling the basic "graniness" of the breast tissue, and that it was more difficult using that method to determine what was normal and what was abnormal. She said she and her colleagues are training other doctors in the method they use, and ended by saying that she uses it to perform her own self-exams.

Does anyone else have their breast exams performed using this method?

Hopeful