Radiologists have long known that areas of breast density, which show up as white on a mammogram, are a risk factor for breast cancer. They pay particular attention because these white areas can also hide existing cancers.
However the research team decided to switch focus away from white areas to bright areas, which have not previously been viewed as significant.
The team, led by PhD student Tuong Linh Nguyen, studied 1300 mammograms of Australian women aged in their 20s to 70s, comparing the bright areas of 354 women with breast cancer with those of 944 women who were cancer-free
While the white areas are important for hiding existing breast cancers, we found that it is the bright, not white, spots that provide information about future breast cancers, Mr Nguyen said.
These results also apply to young women and women with a family history of breast cancer.
