title: ACR Appropriateness Criteria on palpable breast masses.
abstract: Palpable breast masses may become evident during breast self-examination or clinical breast examination or retrospectively after screening mammography. Because most breast masses do not exhibit distinctive physical findings, imaging evaluation is almost always necessary to characterize the lesions and screen the reminder of both breasts. Depending on age, the primary imaging evaluation of a palpable breast mass is mammography or breast ultrasound. Negative imaging results should not deter the biopsy of a clinically suspicious breast mass.
authors.affiliation: Women's Diagnostic Imaging Center, Swedish Cancer Institute, Seattle, Washington 98104, USA. jay.parikh@swedish.org
authors.forename: Jay R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Parikh
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010173:Palpation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011379:Prognosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity