Women’s response to state-mandated language in dense breast notification

Abstract

Many states require radiologists to notify women of dense breast status. Our aim was to elicit women’s response to state mandated dense breast notification language. Of respondents, 82% report that current notification does not inform them of additional screening studies available, and 41% report notification does not inform them of next steps. Open-ended responses indicate three main areas of patient concern: decisional needs, decision quality, and decision support. We modified an existing decision support framework to capture additional themes specific to dense breast decisions. The developed framework can be used to revise and improve current breast density reporting methods.

The effect of breast density on the missed lesion rate in screening digital mammography determined using an adjustable-density breast phantom tailored to Japanese women

“…In some cases, a dense breast leads to substantial missing of lesions, because of the masking effect of normal fibroglandular tissue [10][11][12][13][14][15]. In consideration of this limitation, it has become a common practice to notify examinees' of their breast densities in the USA, spreading to all states by 2019, and further screening with a suitable second modality such as breast echo is recommended based on individual's breast density [16][17][18][19][20]. Japanese women ranging from 40 to 69 years are invited to undergo a mammographic screening every alternate year.…”