Relation of Breast Density with Age and Ethnicity in Malaysia

Breast cancer is one of the cancer that affect women the most. In order to reduce the morbidity and mortality rate due to breast cancer, the best way is to screen and diagnose it as early as possible. There are several ways to diagnose breast cancer; one of them is using mammography. In mammography, cancer or lesions are detected by validating the lesion density, size, shape and nature. Since density is one of the parameter of detecting lesions, it may be difficult for the radiologists to detect the lesions in dense breasts. This study is organized to determine the distribution and association of breast density with age and ethnicity. A cross sectional study was conducted in Department of Imaging, Country Height Health Sanctuary. All medical record of patients underwent medical check-up at the center from January 2007 to December 2009 were selected for this study. Standardized checklist was used to retrieve the data from available medical record of patients in the center. With the total number of 610 subjects, there were significant associations between breast density and age group. However, there were no significant association between breast density and ethnic groups. As conclusion Age has association with breast density while there are no significant association between breast density and ethnic groups1.