Mayo Clinic. US: Disparities in the level of awareness and knowledge of breast density exist among U.S. women, according to the results of a Mayo Clinic study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Breast density is the term used to describe the variation in dense
tissue on a mammogram image. Fatty breast tissue appears more
radiologically translucent than dense (fibroglandular) breast tissue.
Regions of a breast that comprise fatty tissue will appear darker on a
mammogram, while regions that comprise dense tissue appear whiter.
Increased breast density has been shown to mask cancers on the
mammogram as well as to be associated with future risk of breast cancer.
Recent legislation in several states mandates that women be given
information about breast density in order to guide decisions about
breast cancer screening.
Researchers conducted a national cross-sectional survey of 2,311
women ages 40 to 74 in English and Spanish. The survey response rate was
65 percent. Overall, more than half of women who responded (58 percent)
had heard of breast density, 49 percent were aware that breast density
affects breast cancer detection and 53 percent knew that breast density
is associated with cancer risk.