Past, Present and Future of Automated Mammographic Density Measurement for Breast Cancer Risk Prediction

Abstract

Mammography is one of the essential screening technologies which is helpful to save the lives of women against breast cancer. Prediction of breast cancer from mammograms is not reached on its optimal level; hence there is a constant enhancement in clinical applications for mammographic breast density measurement. Optimal results in breast density measurement can be helpful to provide better care for women who have dense breasts. The sensitivity of digital mammograms reduces significantly in case dense breast, which may lead further to hide the cancerous lesions and may be converted into high stage breast cancer. Many research innovations and clinical applications are developed to support radiologists for the second opinion and predict breast cancer risk in advance. But still, there is an unsolved research question: which one is “dense breast” and which screening modularity is suitable for the dense breast to avoid the risk of breast cancer. Hence, currently, radiologists measure mammographic breast density with the help of BI-RADS classification, which is subjective. The basic inclination of this paper is to provide an overview of different clinical applications used for breast density measurement in the past and present with their potential technologies, advantages, disadvantages and current status of all various clinical applications in the market and provides thoughts on the future of automated mammographic breast density measurement.