Soon, doctors must tell their mammogram patients if they have dense breast tissue, a factor that can make it harder to detect breast cancer and put them at greater risk for cancer.
The Food and Drug Administration released new standards in March of 2023 in an effort to help more women detect breast cancer sooner. The FDA gave providers until Sept. 9, 2024 to comply with the new rule for them to include a note on mammogram reports noting if their patients have dense breasts.
"It’s really an opportunity to put the power back into the hands of the patients and letting them know what type of density they have," Molly Guthrie, with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, told News4.
About half of women over the age of 40 in the U.S. have dense breast tissue, which can make cancers more difficult to spot on a mammogram, the FDA said. Dense breasts have also been identified as a risk factor for developing breast cancer.
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D.C. resident Cheryl Shaw beat breast cancer in 2008, but said she never imagined it would come back 11 years later.
"As a mom, as a grandma, I want to be around for them," Shaw said. "You know, I have a lot more to do in life. I'm not done."
When her cancer came back, doctors didn’t discover it until it was already in stage 3, even though she’d had a mammogram just months before.
It wasn't detected because Shaw has dense breasts with a lot of tissue. But she said doctors hadn’t warned her about her breast density.
"If we don’t know what’s going on with our bodies, if we don’t know what the cause is or we don’t know what to look for, we don’t know what questions to ask," she said.
Those with dense breasts may need to get MRIs or ultrasounds, depending on other risk factors.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breast density can change over time.
Women are more likely to have dense breasts if they’re younger, have a lower body weight, and are pregnant or breastfeeding.
Shaw is now in remission. She works at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts on U Street, helping give back to cancer patients and spreading awareness on the importance of screenings.
"Some people see cancer as something they don’t want to know about, and that if they find out about it, they’re no longer gonna be here. But the reality is, there’s so many survivors and I’m one of them," she said.
