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Study: Denser breasts don't raise women's cancer risk
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
August 21st, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
August 21st, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
Many women who get mammograms are being told that their breasts are too
dense to give a good picture. Women whose breast tissue is very dense
have a greater risk of developing breast cancer than women whose breasts
contain more fatty tissue. However - does having denser breasts mean a
worse chance of survival? Apparently not, as a National Cancer Institute
study studied more than 9,000 patients and concluded that those with
very dense breasts were no more likely to die than similar patients
whose breasts weren't as dense.
Even if tumors are found later in the denser breasts, they weren't more aggressive or harder to treat, explained co-author Dr. Karla Kerlikowske, a professor of medicine and epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.
"That risk factor doesn't affect her ability to respond to treatment, and treatment is good," Kerlikowske said.
Researchers, in fact were shocked to find an increased risk of death only in certain women with the least dense breasts, such as those who also were obese or had large tumors. Perhaps it has to do with increased hormones that accompany obesity, Gierach speculates.
The study demonstrates just how much more there is to learn about breast density's complex role in cancer.
"There are a large proportion of women who have dense breasts, but most of those people don't get breast cancer," Kerlikowske cautioned.
Mammograms can show if your breasts are made up mostly of dense tissue - milk-producing and connective tissue - or of fatty tissue. Fatty tissue appears dark on the X-ray while dense tissue appears white, but so do potentially cancerous spots, that can be lost in the shuffle.
It's estimated that half of women younger than 50 and a third older than 50 have dense breasts. It's not clear how many know it since mammogram providers give that information to doctors and not directly to women.
The new state laws were spurred by cancer survivors outraged that they weren't told their dense breasts might have masked the earliest signs of tumors on supposedly clean mammograms. Connecticut, Texas, Virginia and New York have passed laws requiring that mammogram providers notify women if they have dense breasts when they mail out the exam's results.
Other medical tests, such as ultrasounds or MRIs, sometimes find tumors that mammograms miss. However, there's no data showing that the expensive extra testing saves lives, one reason some doctors' groups have lobbied against some of the laws.
Extra tests also tend to trigger more false alarms, leading to needless biopsies. California Governor Jerry Brown cited such concerns in vetoing breast density notification there last year.
New York's new law, to take effect at the end of this year, sidestepped explicit next-test advice by requiring the notification to say: "Use this information to talk to your doctor about your own risks for breast cancer. At that time, ask your doctor if more screening tests might be useful, based on your risk."
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