Published: Saturday February 25, 2012 MYT 4:19:00 PM

Docs must tell women with high breast density about breast cancer risk

By LOH FOON FONG

PETALING JAYA: Doctors who detect high breast density in their patients must tell them about the link to higher risk of breast cancer so that the women are diligent about getting their routine screening.

Universiti Malaya consultant breast surgeon Prof Dr Yip Cheng Har said that post-menopausal women with very dense breasts were four to five times more likely to develop breast cancer than women with low breast density.

She said that doctors often hesitated to tell their patients about the higher cancer risk as they were concerned that the women would be become unduly anxious.

But such knowledge would help the women be more conscientious about having their breast screened on a regular basis as many Malaysian women were generally quite complacent.

“Currently, radiologists do not record breast density readings and women in the category may want to ask for this to be done,” she said in an interview in conjunction with the 1st Asian Symposium on Breast Density recently.

Dr Yip said that it was normal for younger women to have dense breasts but not older women.

The reason for the increased risk is not known but researchers postulate that denser breasts have more breast cells and, therefore, hence, face a higher chance of things going wrong or that cancer grows better in dense breast tissue cells than other cells.

The more dense the breast is, the lighter it appears on mammogram while less dense breast appears darker.

As the image is much lighter, it lacks detail and radiologists cannot detect if anything untoward is happening.

Dr Yip said that women with denser must know that it was even more important for them to combine self and clinical examinations on a regular basis.

The most common method for breast density measurement is the American College of Radiology's Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) for breast density, she said.

However, it is not routinely reported or used by health care providers to assess breast cancer risk.

In the United States, Connecticut and Texas have passed laws requiring doctors to inform the women that they have high breast density and about the increased risk to breast cancer.

There was now a move to make the Breast Density Inform Law to be extended to other states, she said.

Besides age, genes also determine breast density while women with children tend to have breasts that were less dense.

Asian women have denser breasts than Caucasian, but among Asians, Chinese women tend to have denser breasts, she said.

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