Screening and Testing to Detect Breast Cancer
Screening methods to find breast cancer include clinical breast examination (doctors or nurses examine women’s breasts for lumps), mammography, and other imaging techniques. Screening may find cancers early, when they are most treatable.
On this page:
Breast Changes and Conditions
- Understanding Breast Changes: A Health Guide for Women 1
Information on specific breast conditions and changes, including how these changes are detected, diagnosed and treated. Explains that while most breast changes are not cancer, all breast changes need to be checked by a doctor. Helps women understand the next steps after an abnormal mammogram result, and includes a list of questions to help women talk with their doctor about these issues.
Breast Cancer Screening Summary
- Breast Cancer Screening (PDQ®)
[ patient ] 2 [ health professional ] 3
Expert-reviewed information summary about tests used to detect or screen for breast cancer.
Mammograms
- Learn About Mammograms 4
Information to help women and health professionals understand the benefits and risks related to mammograms. - Mammograms 5
A fact sheet that defines screening and diagnostic mammograms. Discusses mammography screening guidelines and risk factors for breast cancer. - Find an FDA Certified Mammography Facility 6
Find an FDA certified mammography facility near where you live or work. - National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) 7
CDC's National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) provides access to breast and cervical cancer screening services to underserved women in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, 5 U.S. territories, and 12 tribes.
Other Screening Methods
- FDA Safety Communication: Thermography Is Not an Alternative to Mammography 8
This FDA document alerts the public, including women and health care providers, that thermography is not a replacement for screening mammography and should not be used by itself to diagnose breast cancer. - MRI Detects Cancers in the Opposite Breast of Women Newly Diagnosed with Breast Cancer 9
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans of women who were diagnosed with cancer in one breast detected over 90 percent of cancers in the other breast that were missed by mammography and clinical breast exam at initial diagnosis, according to a new study. Given the established rates of mammography and clinical breast exams for detecting cancer in the opposite, or contralateral breast, adding an MRI scan to the diagnostic evaluation effectively doubled the number of cancers immediately found in these women.
Clinical Trials to Screen for Breast Cancer
Find Clinical Trials to Screen for Breast Cancer 10
Check for breast cancer screening trials from NCI's list of cancer clinical trials now accepting patients. The list of clinical trials can be refined by location and other features.
Research About Breast Cancer Screening
- Cancer Trends Progress Report: Breast Cancer Screening 11
This section of the Cancer Trends Progress Report focuses on screening mammography. - Breast Imaging Study 12
The Breast Imaging Study will evaluate the use of several new, promising breast cancer screening techniques in women at high genetic risk of breast cancer. - Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium 13
The Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium studies breast cancer screening practices and fosters collaborative research to improve the practice of community-based mammography screening.