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Triple Assessment Breast Clinic
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Please note a referral letter is required before an appointment can be confirmed.
Useful Information
About our services
The Triple Assessment Breast Clinic offers patients with urgent breast symptoms rapid access to comprehensive assessment and review in a single visit.
Our dedicated Triple Assessment Breast Clinic is held every week at Mater Private Specialist Breast Centre for patients with urgent breast symptoms. Once referred by a GP, your referral will be triaged and urgent patients are offered an appointment. During your appointment, you will be offered:
- Clinical assessment
- Radiological examination
- Tissue sampling (depending on clinical and radiological indications)
We pride ourselves in operating as a centre of excellence for symptomatic breast disease, in compliance with and exceeding the standards set out for symptomatic breast disease by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and the National Cancer Control Programme.
Our team
All care is consultant-delivered and led, and coordinated under one roof by our multidisciplinary team. The team includes:
- Consultant breast surgeons
- Consultant radiation oncologists
- Specialist breast care nurses
- Consultant radiologists
- Consultant histopathologists
- Physicists
- Radiographers
All of our consultants and radiologists are affiliated with the National Breast Cancer screening programme.
Tests and procedures
During your appointment, a combination of radiological and sampling tests may be carried out including, but not limited to:
- Mammogram - a low dose x-ray used to take pictures of the breast. Each breast is x-rayed from the side and from the top by a professionally trained radiographer. Screening mammograms are performed on a routine basis on women to detect breast cancer at an early stage, before it can be felt by a woman or her doctor.
- Breast ultrasound - used to assess breast tissue or lymph nodes further following a mammogram or self-examination. Sound waves are used to create images of the inside of your breast on a monitor. Ultrasound imaging is helpful for determining the precise location of a breast lump and whether the lump is solid or filled with fluid.
- Breast biopsy - a small amount of tissue may be removed from the breast if a lesion or lump is found on imaging. A needle is inserted into the breast and a small amount of tissue removed is sent to the laboratory for histological assessment.
- Fine needle aspiration - a fine needle may be inserted into the breast to remove fluid from a cyst or to assess lymph nodes in the axilla. Any fluid aspirated will be sent to the laboratory for cytological assessment.
- Histopathology service - all breast specimens are sent to the histology laboratory for processing and analysis by our consultant histopathologists. Breast specimens are only reported by consultant histopathologists with a special interest in breast pathology and are reviewed and discussed at the weekly multidisciplinary team meeting. Following issue of the final histology report and multidisciplinary meeting review and discussion, results will then be available during consultation with your consultant breast surgeon.
