Meeting to Address Breast Density Reporting

Continuing the debate on the “breast density issue”, the National Mammography Quality Assurance Advisory Committee (NMQAAC) of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will convene on Friday to debate whether the latter should require mammography facilities to reveal the presence of breast density in women via reports sent to referring physicians or letters sent directly to patients. In addition to assistance with these questions, the FDA has requested input from NMQAAC about the verbiage to appear in breast density reports for physicians and/or letters to patients. The agency also is seeking NMQAAC guidance as to whether widespread use of full-field digital mammography (FFDM) and increasing digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) utilization might affect the verbiage contained in breast density reports and patient letters. The radionale: Both FFDM and DBT are said to have a higher potential than other modalities to detect cancer in dense breast tissue.View the meeting agenda.