![]() Your next mammogram letter may include some new terminology such as "fibroglandular tissue" you are not used to seeing. My mammography clinic also gave me a brochure explaining the four levels of density and what it all means, so I was able to figure out that I was not at higher risk based on my breast density.Įven if you don't live in an area that requires radiologists to tell you where you fall on the density scale, the trend seems to be for radiologists to give patients this information as part of their mammogram report. For someone like me who has been getting mammogram reports for years to suddenly receive a letter using an unfamiliar term like "scattered fibroglandular tissue" can be alarming. States vary in how a woman is to be informed and what wording is used. The idea behind the legislation is to make sure that women know if they have the increased breast cancer risk factor of breast density. But they may not be covered by insurance, and they also find more suspicious areas that turn out to be benign. Ultrasounds and MRI's can be useful in spotting a cancerous lump in a woman with dense breasts. The radiologist, fortunately, has some other tools. To make the situation worse, their dense breasts make cancer harder to find because the lump that looks white on the mammogram is difficult to spot with all that white from the fibroglandular tissue. These women have an increased risk of getting breast cancer. About 10% of women have extremely dense breasts composed almost entirely of fibroglandular tissue. Why are some lawmakers requiring you to be told about your breast density? On a mammogram, lumps are white. About 80% of women fit into the middle two categories. From most to least dense, the terminology the radiologist uses may be: Extremely dense, heterogeneously dense, scattered areas of fibroglandular density, or almost entirely fatty. Your radiologist may now be reporting to you which of the four categories of density you fit into. Radiologists classify breast density into four groups. Together these are often referred to as fibroglandular tissue. They also have fibrous tissue that helps connect everything. Every woman's breasts have milk ducts and lobules, the glandular tissue. A high proportion of fibrous and glandular tissue to fatty tissue.
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