Breast Density as a Biomarker for Breast Cancer Risk

We have previously posted about the risk of breast density: women with more dense breast tissue on mammogram have more breast cancers http://drwinsett.blogspot.com/2012/03/link-between-progesterone-and-breast.html.

Breast density poses two problems: increased risk for breast cancer and decreased ability of the mammogram to "find" the cancer in the dense tissue http://drwinsett.blogspot.com/2013/02/know-your-breast-density.html.  The latter finding has led to the recommendation of supplemental screening (in addition to and not replacing the mammogram) for those women with dense breast tissue.  

Can we change the dense breast tissue into less dense tissue and does that lower the breast cancer risk?  We will see tomorrow that decreasing the breast density is associated with fewer breast cancers.  If we had a medicine or surgical technique or life style change that would change the density it could be a biomarker of the effectiveness of the intervention.  The intervention would be working to decrease the breast cancer risk in those whose breast density was decreasing.  Just as cardiologists follow statin drug effectiveness with cholesterol measurements we could follow the effectiveness of our intervention with breast  density measurements.  Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

Check back tomorrow for one of the answers!


Together we can prevent 86,000 breast cancers this year!


This content is general and not personal medical advice, but you should know your breast density!