--- title: Breast Cancer Screening: Dense Breasts Don't Mean More Screening description: The debate over how much screening women with dense breasts should get continues canonical: https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-18T21:00:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:15.086Z article:section: Health og:title: Women With Dense Breasts Don't Always Need More Screening og:description: The debate over how much screening women with dense breasts should get continues og:url: https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4622459df3b32fdb/6988477555a85984fba8b0d2/99310805.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2555 og:image:height: 1437 og:image:alt: 99310805 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Women With Dense Breasts Don't Always Need More Screening twitter:description: The debate over how much screening women with dense breasts should get continues twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4622459df3b32fdb/6988477555a85984fba8b0d2/99310805.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Women With Dense Breasts May Not Need More Screening > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=937a00c5-b448-40e8-8e81-147542d34820&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME Explains: Cancer Screenings [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Explains: Cancer Screenings](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pAMu9cRG.m3u8) (1:51)  _Published 2012-10-01. TIME's Alice Park explains how new cancer screening recommendations effect you_  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 18, 2015 9:00 PM UTC  Mammography Mammography Science Photo Library—Getty Images/Brand X  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent May 18, 2015 9:00 PM UTC For several years now, there been a growing push to advise women with dense breast tissue to get more than just an annual mammogram. And there’s good reason for it—studies show that dense breast tissue can mask small potential tumors on a mammography image, and dense breast tissue may also be a risk factor for breast cancer. But the latest study shows that not all women with dense breasts may be at higher risk of cancer. In a [report published](http://www.annals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.7326/M14-1465) in the _Annals of Internal Medicine_, Dr. Karla Kerlikowske, professor of medicine and epidemiology/biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, and her colleagues provide much-awaited data on exactly what the risk of cancer is for these women. **MORE:** [High-Tech 3D Mammograms Probably Saved This Woman’s Life](http://time.com/2918430/high-tech-3d-mammograms-probably-saved-this-womans-life/) The researchers studied 365,426 women 40 to 74 years old who had more than 831,000 mammograms total. They also had information on the number of breast cancer cases among the women within 12 months of their mammogram. When the team then applied different models for predicting which women would develop cancer—including just their dense breasts, or combinations of their dense breasts and evaluations of their five-year breast cancer risk with factors such as their age, race, family history of the disease, recent breast biopsy and breast density—they found that breast density alone was not a good indicator of cancer risk. Dense breast tissue is determined by radiologists reading a mammogram and is relatively subjective. About half of the women in the study with dense breasts turned out to have low risk of developing cancer. And of those with higher risk, only 24% would have benefited from additional screening such as having an MRI or ultrasound. Overall, that means only 12% of the population of women getting screened by mammograms, including those with dense breast tissue, would need additional screening. **MORE:** [New Genetic Test for Breast Cancer Would Be Cheaper and Easier](http://time.com/3829449/breast-cancer-genetic-test-cheap/) That’s a dramatic difference from the current practice, in which almost all women with dense breasts are advised to consider supplemental screening. In fact, 22 states now mandate that doctors who receive a report that their patient’s breasts contain dense tissue must discuss potential additional screening with their patients. A federal law requiring the same discussion is currently under review. Not all insurers cover this extra screening, however, which raises questions about how cost effective and useful it might be. The latest results hint that the practice may not be justified. About 42% to 45% of women who get screened will have dense breast tissue, and “you can’t do supplemental screening for 45% of the population,” says Kerlikowske. “It’s just not realistic, neither from a time or cost standpoint.” **MORE:** [Many Breast Cancer Patients Get Unnecessary Radiation](http://time.com/3626516/breast-cancer-patients-treated-with-unnecessary-radiation/) As the study shows, it’s possible to figure out which women with dense breasts are more likely to develop cancer by considering not just their breast density but other risk factors as well. “I think people right now are looking at the density report from the mammogram and not taking into account age and other factors,” says Kerlikowske. “But you can’t; you have to look at the risk factors together.” If everyone with dense breasts received additional screening, 1,124 women would have to be screened to catch one potential case of cancer. By incorporating the other risk factors, that number drops to 694. Now that Kerlikowske and her team have zeroed in on a way to identify the women with dense breasts at highest risk of developing cancer, they plan to look at whether MRI and ultrasound tests can help these women to avoid aggressive disease and live longer. ## Transcript In recent months, public health experts have said that not everyone should get screened for cancer, but that doesn't mean that you don't need to be screened. Here is what you need to know. [ MUSIC ] It used to be relatively straight forward that getting screened for cancer was a good way to prevent the disease. But a government group called the US Preventive Services Task Force has recently said that women, for example, Don't need to get mammograms until they're age 50, which is a full decade after previous recommendations had suggested that women get screened. And for men they now say that they don't need to get the blood test PSA which screens for prostate cancer at all. What hasn't changed is the idea that getting screened can prevent cancer. What has changed is the fact that we're better at calculating the risks and benefits of that screening. Lets take breast cancer for example, mammograms are actually x- rays, and so therefore expose women to a small dose of radiation each time they get screened. In addition, not every screening test is 100 % perfect, so they'll pick up. Some false positives, which means cancers that aren't really there. And that can lead to additional procedures, tests, and even surgery, which comes with its own complications. This is particularly true in prostate cancer which is such a slow growing cancer that most men are likely to outlive it. When the panel analyzed these costs and benefits They realized that the benefits did not outweigh the cost of having everyone screened. This doesn't mean that cancer screening is completely obsolete, however. The burden has really shifted to the patents to bring this up with their doctors and to talk about their individual risks for cancer. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/"},"headline":"Why Women With Dense Breasts May Not Need More Screening","datePublished":"2015-05-18T21:00:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:59:15.086Z","description":"The debate over how much screening women with dense breasts should get continues","url":"https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/","keywords":["Cancer","Breast Cancer"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4622459df3b32fdb/6988477555a85984fba8b0d2/99310805.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4622459df3b32fdb/6988477555a85984fba8b0d2/99310805.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"99310805","caption":"99310805","creditText":"Science Photo Library—Getty Images/Brand X","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/cancer/","name":"Cancer"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/","name":"Why Women With Dense Breasts May Not Need More Screening"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME Explains: Cancer Screenings","description":"TIME's Alice Park explains how new cancer screening recommendations effect you","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/pAMu9cRG/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2012-10-01T11:28:53.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pAMu9cRG.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/","duration":"PT1M51S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3872815/breast-cancer-screening-dense-breasts/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```