Breast ultrasound

An ultrasound uses sound waves to build up a picture of the breast tissue. It can show if a lump is solid (made of cells) or filled with fluid (a cyst). It can also show if a solid lump is regular or irregular in shape.

An ultrasound only takes a few minutes. It is painless. You will be asked to remove the clothes from the top half of your body. Then you lie down on a couch with your arm above your head. The person doing the scan puts gel onto your breasts or chest area. They move a small device over the area. A picture of the breast tissue shows up on a screen.

We want everyone affected by cancer to feel our information is written for them.

We want our information to be as clear as possible. To do this, we try to:

• use plain English
• explain medical words
• use short sentences
• use illustrations to explain text
• structure the information clearly
• make sure important points are clear.

We use gender-inclusive language and talk to our readers as ‘you’ so that everyone feels included. Where clinically necessary we use the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ or ‘male’ and ‘female’. For example, we do so when talking about parts of the body or mentioning statistics or research about who is affected.

You can read more about how we produce our information here.