Starting Tuesday, Sept. 10th, women will be notified if their mammogram shows they have dense breast tissue.
Dense breast tissue can hide cancer on a mammogram since the tissue appears white, in the same way lumps and tumors appear white.
Breast density can also change over time and about half of women older than 40 have dense breasts.
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Now the FDA is requiring mammogram reports include breast density information.
“Cancers can be obscured by the density of our breast tissue. So that’s why this is important,” explained Dr. Modupe Adeyefa, breast radiologist at Houston Methodist Clear Lake.
The new notification requirements don’t provide specific next steps for patients with dense breasts, but they recommend women talk with their providers to get a clearer sense of their individual risk and to determine a screening plan that’s right for them.
“Having additional screening does help us to figure out what’s going on,” Dr. Adeyefa said. “It’s nothing abnormal. It’s just how we were made. Everybody’s different, you know, different hair color, different breast density.”
In a survey of nearly 1,900 women 40 to 76 who’d recently had a mammogram, had no history breast cancer, and had heard of breast density, 93% falsely said it was a lesser risk when compared to other well-known breast cancer risks.
While you can’t control whether you have dense breast tissue, some women with dense breasts may benefit from additional imaging options for breast exams, such as ultrasounds or MRI.
“We know that, potentially, we’re going to have a higher incidence of catching smaller cancers with breast ultrasound,” Dr. Adeyefa said.
