Petition for Standardizing Breast Density Notification Protocols

Siobhan Freeney from Ireland has published a petition on Change.org advocating for the necessity of informing women about their breast density.

Approximately 43% of women have dense breasts, making their mammograms difficult, sometimes impossible, to reliably interpret. Cancer can be missed in these images because both cancer and dense breast tissue appear as white areas. This "white on white" effect is likened to "looking for a snowball in a snowstorm" - almost impossible to distinguish one from the other.

There are four categories of breast density:

A: Mostly fatty tissue
B: Scattered fibroglandular tissue
C: Heterogeneously dense
D: Extremely dense

40% of all women have dense breasts, which is an independent and more significant risk factor than having a family history of breast cancer. Nearly 50% of breast cancers are missed on mammograms of women with dense breasts. Density cannot be felt by touch; a mammogram is the only way to assess an individual's category of breast density.

As a result of the D.E.N.S.E. clinical trial in the Netherlands, new European recommendations from the European Society of Breast Imaging (EUSOBI, March 2022) were introduced. These recommend informing women about their breast density category and advising additional MRI scans for women with extremely dense breasts.

Siobhan Freeney herself was diagnosed with breast cancer only six months after a "clear" mammogram. It was years after her diagnosis that she learned her breast cancer had been unseen on screening mammograms due to her extremely dense breasts. Her surgeon revealed that by the time of her surgery, her tumor had been present for 6-8 years. She had four clear mammograms in the five years prior to her diagnosis and was never told she had dense breasts. Had she been informed, she would have known to undergo additional screening with ultrasound or MRI, and her tumor would have been detected earlier.

Siobhan Freeney is urging people to sign her petition so that the National Screening Service introduces a protocol to notify all women about their breast density category, the associated screening risks, and the benefits of additional screening for women with dense breasts.

Early detection matters.

You can read and sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/petition-the-hse-start-notifying-women-about-their-individual-category-of-breast-density