Home News & Events Joan Lunden joins Dr. Cappello at FDA meeting to standardized the reporting of dense tissue to patients.

Joan Lunden joins Dr. Cappello at FDA meeting to standardized the reporting of dense tissue to patients.

Joan Lunden joins Dr. Cappello in Gaithersburg, Maryland to Urge FDA to Take Action for a National Density Reporting Standard

Five years after FDA confirms the importance of a national standard of density reporting through MQSA regulations, nothing has materialized.

It's crucial that the FDA act on the issue of breast density notification, reported Dr. Cappello to the MQSA committee. She last addressed the MQSA committee in November, 2011, and since then, no action has been taken by FDA to protect women with dense breast tissue from missed, delayed and advanced stage breast cancer.

"Since 2011, 200,000 women have died of breast cancer -- and some never missed a mammography appointment," she told the MQSA committee. "The FDA needs to issue regulations to ensure that women have the same information about the impact of dense breast tissue as their doctors do."

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What is Dense Breast Tissue?

How Do I Know if I Have Dense Breast Tissue?

What Do I Do if I Have Dense Breast Tissue?

Are You Dense? Fact #1:
Breast density is one of the strongest predictors of the failure of mammography screening to detect cancer.
Are You Dense? Fact #2:
Two-thirds of pre-menopausal women and 40% of post-menopausal women have dense breast tissue.
Are You Dense? Fact #3:
Adding more sensitive tests to mammography significantly increase detection of invasive cancers that are small and node negative.
Are You Dense? Fact #4:
American College of Radiology describes women with "Dense Breast Tissue" as having a higher than average risk of Breast Cancer.
Are You Dense? Fact #5:
While a mammogram detects 98% of cancers in women with fatty breasts, it finds only 48% in women with dense breasts.
Are You Dense? Fact #6:
A woman at average risk and a woman at high risk have an EQUAL chance of having their cancer masked by mammogram.
Are You Dense? Fact #7:
Women with dense breasts who had breast cancer have a four times higher risk of recurrence than women with less-dense breasts.
Are You Dense? Fact #8:
A substantial proportion of Breast Cancer can be attributed to high breast density alone.
Are You Dense? Fact #9:
Cancer turns up five times more often in women with extremely dense breasts than those with the most fatty tissue.
Are You Dense? Fact #10
There are too many women who are unaware of their breast density, believe their “Happy Gram” when it reports no significant findings and are at risk of receiving a later stage cancer diagnosis.