Breast Density & Mammography

Breastlink founder Dr. John West talks about some of the limits breast density places on screening mammograms and how new technologies are helping doctors overcome them. Breast density is one of the hottest topics in breast care today. Up until 30-40 years ago, doctors only caught large cancers. After the invention of mammography, doctors have been able to catch smaller cancers and have reduced cancer mortality by 30 percent. Sadly, mammograms occasionally miss cancers when doctors use them to examine women with dense breasts. Breasts are made of fat, fibrous, and glandular tissue. Fat shows up black on a mammogram, while fibrous and glandular tissue shows up white. Unfortunately, cancer also shows up white. In a dense breast with lots of fibroglandular tissue, finding a tumor is like trying to find a snowman in a snowstorm. It blends into the background. Doctors are now supplementing mammograms with screening ultrasounds for women with dense breasts. It’s allowed Breastlink doctors to pick up twice as many small, aggressive cancers at an early stage, when they’re still too small for doctors to detect them on a mammogram. They’re also screening high-risk women with MRIs. To learn more about Dr. West, Breastlink, and breast cancer, visit our website: www.breastlink.com