Honors- Breast Cancer

link!

The article that I read this week was about how the mammographic breast density is a high risk factor for breast cancer. In this article, the scientists presented two new ways to estimate the mammographic breast density based on an MRI. The study was done on women between the ages of 31-49 who are genetically at risk for breast cancer. The researchers assessed a lot of different factors like the MRI to the mammographic measures, hormonal factors, genetics and risk using "linear and Poisson regression". The results showed that the MRI percent dense volume was connected with the mammographic percent dense area, but overall it wasn't as connected as they had first thought. Both did have connections to hormonal factors. They concluded that the MRIs and mammographic breast density are connected but not in equal measures and that the MRI has potential to be a predictor of breast cancer risk.

This work is relevant to the world of breast cancer research because finding new connections is huge and puts new pieces of the puzzle together. If there is further research done and the MRI becomes and predictor of breast cancer risk, women could be monitored just as closely as those who are at a genetic risk. I thought it was really interesting that the two different tests (mammograohic and MRI) both had connections to hormonal factors. I think that this article has a lot of potential on several topics. The connections to hormonal factors seemed like a pretty big connection to me. I think that researchers should build on this article and keep doing research on topics related to this.