Midlife wellness includes breast health awareness, meaning it’s time to start scheduling annual mammograms – if you haven’t already. Not only can mammograms help detect breast cancer, but can determine whether you have dense breasts. For women with dense breast, an annual mammogram may not be enough.
Breasts are comprised of fibrous, glandular and fatty tissue. When you have dense breasts, there’s an increased amount of fibrous or glandular tissue, but not much fat. While density may decrease with age, there is little, if any, change of density in most women.
Determining Breast Density
Your mammogram helps radiologists determine if you have dense breasts and classify your breast density based on a 4-level scale:
