Breast Clinic

Welcome to the Breast Clinic

At your first appointment as a new patient there are several procedures to be followed. These are necessary to obtain the information required to enable the breast team to make a diagnosis of your medical condition.

Therefore, we would like you to be available for a few hours from the time of your appointment and we ask for your understanding of why this needs to be done and to allow for this time.

The time you spend in clinic may be shorter than the few hours, as it is not always possible to complete all of the necessary investigations on the same day and further appointments may be required.

If you have been referred to Dorset County Hospital from the Breast Screening Unit, you will have had some procedures already, so these will not need to be performed again.

You are welcome to bring a friend or a member of your family to all appointments. During the appointment, please feel free to ask any questions that you may have and a member of the breast team will endeavour to answer these for you. You may also wish to have the opportunity to meet one of the Breast Nurse Specialists or you may feel you would like to make contact with these nurses before your appointment date.

The contact number can be found below. Listed below are the various procedures that may be necessary to obtain a diagnosis. You may experience some discomfort, pain or bruising. Again, these investigations may not take place on the same day.

Clinical examination

Either the Consultant or a member of the breast team will take your medical history and carry out a careful examination of your breasts and under your arms. Following this examination the doctor may need one or more of the following tests. The tests may not be carried out on the same day and further appointments may be necessary.

Mammography

Please do not use talcum powder, deodorant or body lotion on the day of your appointment for a mammogram. Mammography uses compression which is essential in the production of a diagnostic image. It helps to stop movement, which can cause blurring of the image.

Compression also reduces the breast thickness, which improves visualisation of small breast lesions and reduces the amount of radiation to the breast tissue. The results may not be available on the same day.

Ultrasound

This procedure and test is painless and takes just a few minutes using sound waves to build up a picture of the area of the breast involved. These results may not be available on the same day.

Needle aspiration

This is quite a simple procedure. Using a fine needle and a syringe, the doctor will take a sample of cells from the breast tissue and send these to the hospital laboratory for analysis. Please be aware that this particular test is sometimes uncomfortable.

Core biopsy

You will be given a local anaesthetic to numb the area of breast to be tested; some small samples of tissue will be removed and sent to the hospital laboratory for analysis. However, please be aware that despite the anaesthetic this procedure may be uncomfortable.

Please be aware that it is not possible to obtain the results from these tests on the same day as your clinic appointment. It is our aim to try to do all the tests needed on the day you attend, however this is not always possible and further appointments may be required. Also, sometimes tests return as negative and these may have to be repeated.

Queries before your appointment date

The breast nurse specialists would be pleased to help you with any queries you may have prior to your appointment.

Contact numbers

We hope that you have found this information useful. If you have any questions or are worried about anything, please speak to the breast nurse specialists on 01305 255160.

About this leaflet

Author: Lorraine Sers, Breast Clinical Nurse Specialist
Written: September 2021
Approved: September 2021
Review date: September 2023
Edition: 2

If you have feedback regarding the accuracy of the information contained in this leaflet, or if you would like a list of references used to develop this leaflet, please email patientinformation.leaflets@dchft.nhs.uk