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Examples of 75% to 100% mammographic density

Were you wondering what do dense breasts look like? It’s not something you’re used to seeing, so it takes a minute to realize what you are looking at.

greater than 75% contains fibroglandular tissue very dense mammogram confluent dense tissue mammographic density more than 75%

There are quite a lot of examples in this category. These are mammograms that have the highest amount of dense fibroglandular tissue, which are the confluent fluffy white areas on each picture. These areas represent glands, milk ducts and fibers inside the breast itself. The darker areas of the fat or adipose tissue. You can see quite a lot of variability between individual women. It is common to have small cysts present within dense tissue, and a few of the examples show some small calcifications.

Back to other mammographic density pages or the breast cancer risk calculator.

Dense. I was hoping for more.

Yes, more information, not just pictures.

My apologies. this page is just where I parked my example pictures of dense mammograms. If you go back up to my other mammo density page, there’s more discussion, but I’ll also add a few links below.

Extra References

Mandelson MT1, Oestreicher N et al Breast density as a predictor of mammographic detection: comparison of interval- and screen-detected cancers. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2000 Jul 5;92(13):1081-7.

This article is telling us that mammograms only have about 30% sensitifity for detecting cancer, if the breasts are in the dense category. That’s very poor, and it’s a real problem.

Have you ever missed a cancer, doc?

Yes, I have. And every time, I get an angry phone call from the doctor, and I know, that the woman is angry too.

How do you handle it?

It can’t be “handled”, can’t be “shuffled along”. It makes me sad for the person, and reminds me to want to do better.

But aren’t you an expert?

Definitely not. I’m an average radiologist when it comes to mammograms.

Do other radiologists miss breast cancers too?

All of them.