Increasing Breast Density Significantly Impacts Breast Cancer Screening Performance

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Jan. 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In the first large-scale study of its kind, Dutch researchers demonstrated a strong linear relationship between decreased screening performance and volumetric breast density.  Involving more than 110,000 mammograms from the Dutch Breast Screening Program (Foundation of Population Screening Mid-West), the study showed that increasing volumetric breast density, automatically measured by Volpara^®Density™ software, impacts mammography performance measures, such as sensitivity and the rates of recall, false positives, and interval cancers.

The study, "Volumetric breast density affects performance of digital screening mammography," was recently published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment (DOI: 10.1007/s10549-016-4090-7) and was carried out in the EU-funded ASSURE project  The results suggest that, since fully automated measurements of breast density have much higher reproducibility than visual assessment, this automatic method could help with implementing density-based supplemental screening.

In the study, Dr Carla van Gils and a team of researchers from the Netherlands examined screening performance in the Dutch Screening Program using a consecutive series of 111,898 digital mammograms from 53,239 women (age 50–75 years). Volumetric breast density was automatically assessed using VolparaDensity software, which automatically generates an objective measurement of volumetric breast density.

"There have been several studies that have demonstrated the impact of breast density on the sensitivity of mammography, including a recent study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology¹ that showed a strong linear relationship between volumetric breast density and sensitivity.  However, this is the first large-scale study to also demonstrate a strong relationship between volumetric density and other screening performance measures like recall rate, false positives or interval cancers," said Dr van Gils.  "With the high reproducibility of the automatic VolparaDensity software, this could help with evaluating risk and better inform clinical decisions about adjunctive screening options based on women's specific density and other risk factors."

The study included 667 screen-detected and 234 interval cancers. Of all the tumors, 84.3% were invasive cancers.  Mammographic sensitivity was 85.7%, 77.6%, 69.5%, and 61.0% across VDG categories 1-4, respectively.  Increasing breast density showed a strong linear relationship to all screening performance measures, except positive predictive value.  The rates for recalls, false positives, and total and interval breast cancers in higher breast density categories were greater than those in lower density categories. Results demonstrated that a woman was nearly seven times more likely (4.4/1000 examinations versus 0.7/1000) to have an interval cancer if her breasts were extremely dense (VDG4) versus very fatty (VDG1) and approximately twice as likely (23.8/1000 examinations versus 11.2/1000) to have a false-positive if they were extremely dense (VDG4) versus very fatty (VDG1).

According to Dr van Gils, another interesting finding is the relationship between cancer type (in situ or invasive), breast density and detection mode (screen-detected or interval).  When only invasive breast cancer was taken into account, the difference in sensitivity between the density categories was even more pronounced.

"This indicates that the detection of invasive breast cancers in screening is hampered to a larger extent than the detection of in situ breast cancers. A possible explanation for this is that the visibility of microcalcifications is not hampered as much in dense tissue as the visibility of invasive breast cancers," added Dr van Gils.  "Studying this relationship further could be very important as we further develop our understanding of the effectiveness of screening."

About Volpara Solutions

Founded with the goal of helping radiologists give women the most accurate information possible regarding their breast health, Volpara Solutions is the wholly owned sales and marketing arm of Volpara Health Technologies Limited of New Zealand (formerly Matakina Technology). Available in most markets where breast cancer screening is commonplace, VolparaDensity provides an objective volumetric measure of breast density from both digital mammography and tomosynthesis data. VolparaDensity software is part of a suite of quantitative breast imaging tools built on the Volpara Solutions algorithm that allows for personalized measurements of density, patient-specific x-ray dose, breast compression, breast positioning, and other factors designed to provide critical insight for breast imaging workflow. For more information, visit www.volparasolutions.com.

¹ "Using volumetric breast density to quantify the potential masking risk of mammographic density," published in the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) (DOI:10.2214/AJR.16.16489)

SOURCE Volpara Solutions

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