Physician and head of breast cancer therapy at New Jersey’s Overlook Medical Center Bonni Guerin, M.D., tells SELF that around half of all adult American women have dense breasts. The prevalence of dense breasts is underestimated, she argues. Breast density may range from “mainly fatty” to “very dense.”
Mammogram Results
You are probably already aware of your breasts’ size, sensitivity, potential fibrousness, and cystic nature. However, do you have any idea whether they are dense? This isn’t something you can just feel.
The mammography findings for many women include a letter informing them that they have dense breasts. However, recent studies show that women are unsure of what “dense breasts” really are and are frightened about the effects they may have on their health.
Notifying patients of high mammographic density is mandatory in about half of the states in the United States. Unfortunately, recent research published in JAMA reveals that the letters are frequently puzzling to women and may even cause them to falsely believe they have cancer when they do not.
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Common In Women Younger Or With Smaller Breasts
Breast density decreases with age, which aids in mammographic imaging. Younger women and women with smaller breasts tend to have a higher prevalence of dense breasts. That’s why, as Czerniecki points out, “we don’t normally suggest that 20-year-olds undergo mammograms.” “Your visibility would be severely impaired.”
Increased Risk Of Developing Breast Cancer
According to Moffitt Cancer Center, breast cancer department head Brian Czerniecki, M.D., Ph.D., most doctors still don’t understand the implications of dense breasts for women’s health.
While mammograms may identify lumps and malignant growths in non-dense breast tissue, women with dense breast tissue have a higher chance of developing breast cancer. According to Czerniecki, “extra screenings” should be made available to women whose mammograms show a high density.”
Knowing you have dense breasts is significant since it is one of the most significant risk factors for getting breast cancer and because of the difficulties that screening might offer. According to Guerin, approximately one-third of all breast cancers are diagnosed in women with dense breasts; thus, this may boost your risk by as much as five times.
Breast density has been linked to an increased risk of