Medical Imaging and Analysis of Dense Breast Tissue: A Case Study

Dense breast tissue is not abnormal, and it is very common for women to have dense breasts. However, dense breast tissue is one of the risk factors that put women at higher risk of getting breast cancer and possibly four to six times more likely to get the disease. Dense breasts are not related to the size of the breast, it cannot be self-examined, and it can make it harder to read mammography results compared to women with fatty breasts. A dense breast has less fatty tissue but more fibrous and glandular tissue, and on a mammogram, fat appears dark, while breast gland tissue looks light. Similar to gland tissue, breast tumours and calcifications look light on mammography and this can make cancers difficult to be seen as it can merge inside the breast tissue. Therefore, other modalities such as ultrasound imaging is used to aid mammography in screening patient's with dense breasts. In this work, the case of a young female patient that has dense breast tissue with a previous history of breast lesion, and a strong family history of breast cancer and other types of cancer, is presented including the results of the patient's full genetic testing of BRCA1 (Breast Cancer gene one) and BRCA2 (Breast Cancer gene two), along with the results of her mammography and ultrasound imaging. It was found that the patient does not have any significant changes in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. The mammography results demonstrated extremely dense breast tissue with no evidence of breast masses. However, ultrasound imaging demonstrated a 1.8 cm breast mass in the right breast.