Mammogram that proves better for women with dense breasts barely used in the United States

A large study shows that one particular mammogram can find more cancers for women with dense breast tissue.

According to a recent story by Roni Caryn Rabin in The New York Times, the study, which compared various types of scans, "has found that mammography enhanced with iodine-based dye can detect three times as many invasive cancers in dense breast tissue as ultrasound."

Women with dense breast tissue are at an elevated risk for breast cancer. Because insurers often decline to pay for scans such as the contrast-enhanced mammograms, many women stick with basic mammograms that often miss tumors buried in dense breasts.

Dr. Fiona J. Gilbert

Rabin quotes Dr. Fiona J. Gilbert, lead author of the study that was published in The Lancet and a professor of radiology at the University of Cambridge's  School of Clinical Medicine, as saying that "contrast-enhanced mammography needs to become standard of care for women with dense breasts" — if they're at high risk of developing breast cancer.

She explained that "when you have lots of white normal breast tissue, it's hard to see the white cancers, but when you do the contrast, the cancers take up the iodine, and all you're seeing is this cancer lighting up."

The Times piece also quotes JoAnn Pushkin, executive director of the educational group DenseBreast-info, to the effect that the study showed contrast-enhanced mammograms could save lives. She said that researchers not only found more tumors but detected them when they were small and had not yet spread to the lymph nodes.

"These," she said, "were tragedies averted. If they had not been found, they would have grown undetected until they were horror stories."

Contrast-enhanced mammography has yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for breast cancer screening, so it is barely used in the United States. It is, however, utilized in limited cases as a diagnostic tool after suspicious findings appear on a regular mammogram.

More information about screenings can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers. My other books are MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of my newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that I co-authored with my then 8-year-old granddaughter.