'Not good enough': Dense breasts halting life-saving cancer diagnoses

Dense breasts can obscure life-saving cancer diagnoses, as experienced by Kate Clark, whose breast cancer spread to her lymph nodes before being detected by an MRI after initial mammogram and ultrasound scans came back clear. Clark emphasized that without pursuing further testing, her situation could have been much worse.

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I'd had a mammogram and an ultrasound, and both had come back clear. But because of my leaking nipple, I didn't want to just leave it there.

High breast density, characterized by more fibrous and glandular tissue than fatty tissue, affects about 40% of Australian women. This density makes cancerous tumors harder to spot on standard mammograms. While BreastScreen Australia, the national screening program, updated its guidelines in November 2024 to recommend informing all screened individuals about their breast density and encouraging discussions with GPs about additional screening, actual implementation remains inconsistent.

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Had I not pursued it further, I could be in a much worse place now and perhaps not even be here.

Currently, only BreastScreen services in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia measure and report breast density. Vicki Durston, director of policy at Breast Cancer Network Australia, highlighted the critical need for women to be aware of their breast density. She noted that despite the national recommendation, some states and territories have been slow to adopt these measures, leaving many women unaware of their increased risk.

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We know that breast density is a risk factor for breast cancer, and we certainly know that approximately 40 per cent of women are at risk of high breast density. So it's vitally important that women are notified of their status in order to know their risk.