Researchers found that breast cancers are 5 times more often in women with extremely dense breasts than in those with the mostly fatty tissue.

The Canadian study by cancer centers in Toronto and Vancouver focuses on how and when cancers were found over eight years in existing records of 1,112 women collected between 1981 and last year. It is being reported in the recent issue of New England Journal of Medicine. In this study, women with at least 75 percent dense breasts showed 5 times more likelihood of cancer than women with less than 10 percent density

These findings may signal that in the future, women can be advised and intervened appropriately relative to their risk factor after mammograms. On mammograms, fat looks dark, but dense tissue is light. The study confirms that density is a true risk factor, along with other strong predictors like age and the genes BRCA1 and 2.

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Breast cancers are the second most lethal kind after lung cancers in women. About one in eight women will get invasive breast cancer during her lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. Last year, roughly 41,000 U.S. women died of it. Worldwide, it kills about 370,000 women each year.

Adapted from Boston Globe & AP News

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