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According to the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau population estimate, there are 62.1 million Hispanics living in the United States (18.7% of the total population). Data also showed that 71.1 percent of Hispanics speak a language other than English at home and 28.4 percent state that they are not fluent in English. To bridge this language gap, DenseBreast-info.org is committed to expanding educational content available in Spanish.

• We are delighted to debut our newest tool, the patient education video La Densidad de los Senos y el Cáncer de Mama.

DB-I was founded to support patient/provider “density” conversations occurring because of U.S. density inform laws and the increasing awareness of the implications of dense tissue. The growing utilization of the DB-I website now extends globally and these groups, societies and associations link to and/or share the website as a resource for members or patients.

Reaching Referring Providers
To address the educational needs of referring providers, DB-I will begin running ads in the bimonthly American College of Osteopathic Obstetricians and Gynecologists newsletter to highlight DB-I educational tools (particularly the CME/CE course). This complements DB-I’s existing effort to reach-out through ads inJAMA to obstetricians and family medicine practitioners.

The Sept 28^th online education day, organized in conjunction with Yale Medicine, resulted in engagement with tens of thousands around the globe (more details here). The social media event included strong participation from European advocates and health organizations. Many thanks to all for participating in the day and sharing DB-I resources.

 Medical Advisory Board News

• DB-I Medical Advisory Board members Drs. Paula Gordon and Jean Seely advocate for updates to Canadian breast screening guidelines in the news segment:  ‘Outdated’ breast cancer screening guidelines failing Canadian women: report. The story highlights a report on breast density “inform” and inconsistent breast screening practices issued by advocacy organization Dense Breasts Canada.
• Congratulations to Dr. Georgia Spear who has been promoted to Clinical Associate Professor of Radiology with the University of Chicago!

In the United States there are over 350,000 service women and 2 million women veterans. The Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) is the voice of women who have served or are currently serving in the military. At SWAN’s request, DB-I has developed a series of educational social media posts that SWAN will be sharing with members during the month of October.

New Articles

• Just out in the Journal of Breast Imaging, BI-RADS 3 on Screening Breast Ultrasound: What Is It and What Is the Appropriate Management? by Dr. Wendie Berg, DB-I’s Chief Scientific Advisor. The review article details appropriate characterization, classification, and new approaches to the management of probably benign masses seen on screening US that can reduce false positives and, thereby, reduce costs and patient anxiety.

• Published in Nature Communications, an article on AI-based decision support systems for interpreting breast US exams,  Artificial intelligence system reduces false-positive findings in the interpretation of breast ultrasound exams. Using the NYU Breast Ultrasound Dataset consisting of 5,442,907 images within 288,767 breast US exams, the authors demonstrated in a reader study that deep learning models trained with a sufficiently large amount of data are able to produce diagnosis as accurate as experienced radiologists

In conjunction with Yale Medicine, we are delighted to kick-off our 4^th annual #DenseBreastDay™ on September 28^th.  It will be a full day social media blitz to spread awareness and education on the topic of breast density.

• Posts begin at 2:30am/U.S. Eastern (for our friends in Europe) and will run until 8pm/U.S. Eastern.
• Look for posts going out every 30 minutes to highlight what breast density is, why it matters, and screening considerations/options for women with dense breasts.
• Content will include links to new and updated educational tools.

Please follow us on Twitter and reshare!

European Commission Knowledge Centre on Cancer (KCC)
Launched in June 2021, the KCC “aims to mobilize people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe” by bringing together experts, researchers, and policymakers within and outside of the Commission.

• DB-I offered input and is glad to be included as a resource for KCC content Screening for Women with High Mammographic Breast Density.

In collaboration with OBG Management magazine, we are delighted to announce the launch of an interactive quiz series, In the Know with DenseBreast-info (press announcement here).

Each month’s quiz will address a knowledge gap identified through the DB-I research study, Effect of an educational intervention on women’s healthcare provider knowledge gaps about breast density, breast cancer risk, and screening. The study identified important knowledge gaps about implications of breast density among women’s healthcare referring providers and showed that these deficiencies can be effectively addressed with web-based education.

Please share these monthly quizzes within your networks!

New Editorial
DB-I Medical Advisory Board member Dr. Paula Gordon authored a new editorial in the Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, Breast Density and Risk of Interval Cancers. She describes the “natural experiment” created by the patchwork of breast cancer screening policies across Canadian provinces and territories. Most jurisdictions screen only biennially, but a minority do screen annually if the woman has dense breasts. This study demonstrated reduced interval cancers in jurisdictions that do so.

The Breast Density Assessment Software content has just been updated by our Medical Advisory Board members. As a reminder, content for  Mammography/Tomosynthesis,  Contrast-Enhanced Mammography, Ultrasound, MRI and MBI has also had recent update.

Risk Model Tutorial
A reminder that DB-I’s For Providers content features a Risk Model Tutorial with details on how the risk models are used, explanations about the various models, diagnostic considerations for each,  and a Risk Models Table with live links to each model.

DB-I’s Director of Education and Epidemiology Research, Robin Seitzman, PhD, MPH, will author a recurring interactive quiz and column, “In the Know with DenseBreast-info,” in OBG Management magazine. Details on the launch to follow.

Just Published
In JAMA, Association of Breast Density with Breast Cancer Risk Among Women Aged 65 Years or Older by Age Group and Body Mass Index. The findings suggest that breast density is associated with an increased risk of invasive breast cancer among women aged 65 years or older.

The MRI content has just been updated by our Medical Advisory Board members. As a reminder,  Mammography/Tomosynthesis,  Contrast-Enhanced Mammography, Ultrasound and MBI content have also had recent updates. Look for Breast Density Assessment Software content update next.

CME/CE Course
Our newly launched CME/CE course, Dense Breasts and Supplemental Screening, is off to a strong start! We are 3 months out of the gate with nearly 1,800 enrollees. Thank you, to all,  for sharing the educational opportunity within your networks.

Three newly published articles on the topic of reducing false positive rates in ultrasound and MRI:

• BI-RADS 3 on Screening Breast Ultrasound: What Is It and What Is the Appropriate Management?Journal of Breast Imaging
• Reducing False-Positive Screening MRI Rates in Women with Extremely Dense Breasts. Radiology
• Reducing False-Positive Screening MRI Rate in Women with Extremely Dense Breasts Using Prediction Models Based on Data from the DENSE Trial. Radiology

Also new, does the performance of adjunctive ultrasound in women undergoing screening mammography change according to breast density?

• Evaluation of Adjunctive Ultrasonography for Breast Cancer Detection Among Women Aged 40-49 Years with Varying Breast Density Undergoing Screening Mammography, JAMA

Empowerment through education is a mission shared by many medical societies. We are delighted to announce educational collaboration with the European Society of Radiology (ESR). The ESR is the largest radiological society in the world with over 122,000 members and connected with 49 European national member societies.

Read our announcement to learn more. ESR outreach to members includes DB-I webpage banners and will also involve collaboration on social media to share educational tools. The ESR announced the collaboration here and a sample screen shot of the ESR announcement (posted on ESR’s LinkedIn page) is below.

We welcome the ESR to our education coalition!

The Ultrasound content is the latest website material to be updated by our Medical Advisory Board members. As a reminder,  Mammography/Tomosynthesis,  Contrast-Enhanced Mammography and MBI content was also recently updated.  Look for updated MRI content next.

European Screening Guidelines / Sweden
National breast screening programs for women of average risk are offered in nearly all European countries, and opportunistic mammography exists in some countries either as the sole screening system or in addition to the national breast screening program. NEW: Screening guideline information for Sweden is now included in both the DB-I/Europe map and table content.  With thanks to Dr. Fofi Kakoulidis for assistance with content.

The Mammography/Tomosynthesis content is the latest website material to be updated by our Medical Advisory Board members. As a reminder, Contrast-Enhanced Mammography and MBI content has also been recently updated.  Look for updated Ultrasound content next.

PALS Act of 2021
DB-I has joined other women’s health organizations in support of Protecting Access to Lifesaving Screenings (PALS) Act of 2021. The federal bill extends a congressional moratorium, first passed in 2015, on recommendations made by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, that would advise women to begin biennial breast cancer screenings at age 50 instead of annual screenings beginning at age 40. The PALS Act delays these recommendations to protect insurance coverage of annual breast cancer screenings at no cost for women aged 40 and older.

The DB-I website features a full suite of Spanish-language tools; check out the new/updated FAQs. We are also at work on a new Spanish patient video, details to come.

New Research
DB-I Medical Advisory Board member Dr. Jean Seely has new research published in the Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, Breast Density and Risk of Interval Cancers: The Effect of Annual Versus Biennial Screening Mammography Policies in Canada. The Canadian study showed that the interval cancer rate for women with dense breasts was 40-45% lower when women are screened every year compared with every 2 years.

The DB-I website is under constant review by our Medical Advisory Board volunteers, and in current review is the Technology Tab content. News this week is that Contrast-Enhanced Mammography and MBI updated content is now live.

SBI Summer Series: Dense Breasts
DB-I’s Dr. Wendie Berg and JoAnn Pushkin participated in SBI’s Summer Series on the topic of dense breasts. In case you missed the discussion, click here.

Patient Fact Sheet
Already available in more than 20 languages, DB-I’s downloadable Patient Fact Sheet is now available in Arabic.  Our thanks for translation assistance to Dr. Norran Hussein Said.

Patient Video Tools
A reminder that DB-I’s YouTube channel houses two patient video series for use as clinical or patient resources:

• Let’s Talk About Dense Breasts  – a 3-part educational series covering topics: “What is Breast Density?”, “Why Does Breast Density Matter?”, and “Is My Mammogram Enough?”
• Dense Breast Diaries – individual survivor story videos about the screening implications of dense breast tissue

SBI Summer Series
DB-I’s Dr. Wendie Berg and JoAnn Pushkin will participate in SBI’s Summer Series discussion on the topic of dense breasts. Please join on July 14^th, 7pm/eastern.