Summary
Researchers suggest that the NHS should offer extra scans for women with very dense breasts to find more cancers. A study by Cambridge University found that using special scans could increase the number of detected cancers in these women.
Key Facts
- Women with dense breasts have a higher risk of breast cancer, but it’s harder to see these cancers using regular mammograms.
- A study involved over 9,000 women and tested new scanning methods besides traditional mammograms.
- Enhanced mammograms and fast MRI scans detected more cancers than regular mammograms.
- Traditional mammograms find about 8 cancers per 1,000 women; the new methods found 17-19.
- If used widely, these techniques could find 3,500 extra cases of cancer each year in the UK.
- Women aged 50 to 71 are invited for breast screening every three years in the UK.
- A new national cancer plan for England is expected to be released later this year.
