Analysis of the relationship between global breast density and maximum points of breast density in a sample of Brazilian women

Abstract

Maximum points of breast density have been strongly associated with breast cancer masking than global breast density, which is a widely used measure today. The objective of this work was to verify the correlation between two measures of global breast density (VBDGLOBAL and DABGLOBAL) and a measure of maximum point breast density (VBDMP). Mammographic images of 4.020 patients were analyzed using the Volpara software, which calculated or extracted the variables needed for the study from the DICOM header. Two-tailed partial correlation tests were performed between the variable VBDGLOBAL with VBDMP and DABGLOBAL with VBDMP in the following contexts: keeping PA and CBT constant, keeping only CBT constant, and keeping only PA constant. The Pearson test was also used to verify the bivariate correlation between VBDGLOBAL with VBDMP and DABGLOBAL with VBDMP. For the two-tailed partial correlation tests between VBDGLOBAL with VBDMP, keeping the CBT and PA variables constant resulted in r = 0.845 (p < 0.05). When kept constant only the CBT, r = 0.875 (p < 0.05), and keeping only the PA constant r = 0.866 (p < 0.05). Pearson's test showed r = 0.883 (p < 0.05). For the two-tailed partial correlation tests between the DABGLOBAL with VBDMP quantities, the results were r = 0.675 (p < 0.05), r = 0.725 (p < 0.05) and r = 0.701 (p < 0.05) for constant CBT and PA, constant CBT and constant PA, respectively, while the Pearson test resulted in r = 0.738 (p < 0.05). We conclude that a woman who has high global breast density is also highly likely to have maximum points of breast density.