Having dense breasts is one of the risk factors for breast cancer in women. Dense breast is a natural development and commonly found in 50 per cent of women aged 40 and older.

“If you have dense breasts, there is almost nothing you can do about it. You are born with the feature and it’s now a part of your body”, an oncologist at the best cancer hospital in West Bengal will tell you.

Dense breasts have a lot of fibrous tissue instead of fatty tissue. Unfortunately, having dense breasts increases your chance of breast cancer. On top of that, tumours and other abnormalities are often not visible in dense breasts.

The type of density that your breasts have cannot be changed. However, there are ways to manage your risk. You should undergo mammograms regularly and other available screening tests. In addition, you should also adopt a healthy lifestyle to cut down the risk of breast cancer.

Dense breast has three types of tissues. These are:

• Glandular Tissue: It produces milk.
• Fibrous Tissue: It keeps the breast tissues in place.
• Fatty Tissue: Fatty tissue makes up the space between the fibrous tissue, the glandular tissue (the lobes) and the milk-carrying ducts. It is responsible for the size and shape of the breasts.

Fibrous and glandular tissues together are called fibroglandular tissue. Breast density is determined by the amount of fibroglandular tissue compared to the amount of fatty tissue in the breasts.

The women, who have a history of dense breasts in their family, are more likely to carry the genes. However, density of breasts can be acquired as the feature can develop over time.

Women are likely to have dense breasts if they:

• Are younger
• Are expecting or breastfeeding
• Have a lower body mass index
• Are using estrogen therapy (also called hormone therapy) to relieve menopause symptoms.

Many women don’t know if they have dense breasts until they undergo mammograms. There are four different categories of dense breasts according to a method developed by the American College of Radiology. These are:

• Heterogeneously dense breast tissue
• Extremely dense breast tissue
• Scattered fibroglandular breast tissue
• Almost entirely fatty breast tissue

This method is known as BI-RADS (Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System). Talk to your doctor at the best oncology hospital in Kolkata and know if you have dense breasts and if yes, how to mitigate your chance of having cancer.