What factors influence breast density. Breast density is often inherited, but other factors can influence it. Factors associated with higher breast density include using menopausal hormone therapy and having a low body mass index. Factors associated with lower breast density include increasing age and having children.
Breast density is not a static trait. Breast density changes with age, for example. On average, older women have lower density breast tissue than do younger women. The greatest change in density occurs during the menopause years.
Breast density is often inherited, but other factors like having children, going through menopause or using hormone replacements can change the makeup of breast tissue. Younger women typically have more dense breasts. Hormonal changes associated with menopause can make breast tissue more fatty.
Women with dense breasts have a higher chance of getting breast cancer. The more dense your breasts are, the higher your risk. Scientists don't know for sure why this is true. Breast cancer patients who have dense breasts are not more likely to die from breast cancer than patients with non-dense (fatty) breasts.
In some cases, dense breast tissue can be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. Studies have shown that four in 10 cases of breast cancer in younger women could be attributed to high breast density.
Women with dense breasts, but no other risk factors for breast cancer, are considered to have a higher risk of breast cancer than average. They may benefit from annual breast cancer screening.
If you have dense breast tissue and are at an increased risk of breast cancer due to a genetic mutation or other factors, your care team may recommend alternating MRIs and mammograms every six months.
People with dense breasts have a higher risk of breast cancer. People with the highest density are 4 to 6 times more likely to get breast cancer than people with the least dense breasts. This is because glandular tissue is more likely to develop cancer.
If you are losing weight and shedding some of the fatty tissue in your breasts, the breast's composition begins to change. This change in composition can be responsible for impacting the density of breasts that show up in a mammogram.
Can I change my breast density? No — breast density is determined by genetics, age, menopause status and family history. Weight gain and certain medications can also influence your breast density.
"We know that omega-3s help decrease inflammation in the body," she says. "You can also eat walnuts and seeds if you want a non-animal source." And just like olive oil, eating more omega-3s may also be linked to a reduction in breast density, according to a 2014 study in Cancer Causes & Control.
Given the variability of these factors, breast density reporting can fluctuate year to year. For example, if your weight fluctuates, one year a woman may be told she has dense breasts, and the next year that they are not.
Fat content in what you eat and exercise do not directly change breast density. But if you lose or gain a lot of weight, your breasts can look more or less dense on your mammogram – though the amount of dense tissue will stay the same.
A study has found that breast density classifications can be unreliable -- as many as 22% of women had their breast density change from dense to not dense from mammogram to mammogram.
Breast density has nothing to do with firmness or size, Friedlander says. “Dense breasts are not something that you can notice or that your doctor can feel on physical examination. It's a designation purely defined by what your mammogram pictures look like.”
Breast cancer symptoms at stage 1 may include: Nipple discharge. Dimpling of the skin. Swelling or redness of the breast.
A lump in the breast or armpit is the most common symptom of breast cancer. Patients often describe this as a ball or a nodule. Lumps may feel soft and rubbery or hard.
Signs and symptoms of breast cancer may include: A breast lump or thickening that feels different from the surrounding tissue. Change in the size, shape or appearance of a breast. Changes to the skin over the breast, such as dimpling.
Potential reasons behind this statistic include larger left breast size, more frequent self-screening of left breast, and right-side breastfeeding preferences.
Breasts are called dense when a mammogram shows more fibrous tissue and less fat. Do dense breasts feel different? Dense breasts don't feel any different than breasts with more fatty tissue. This means you can't tell if you have dense breasts on your own or with a clinical breast exam.
Women diagnosed with dense breasts should continue to get regular screening mammograms. But there are additional screening tests that can help doctors detect tumors that may not be identified by conventional mammography or DBT: Breast ultrasound (whole-breast ultrasound).
Women with dense breasts have several options for follow-up breast cancer screening after mammography, including ultrasound, MRI, physical examination, and 3-D mammography, which gives radiologists a more complete view of the breast.