Artical on one of the Previvors groups... Dense breasts

You are misunderstanding what you are reading because that is incorrect.

A link/citation would be helpful. It is difficult to know the context of your statement, and if it was a direct statement from Dr. Rhodes, or if it was a statement from journalism. I tried for about 10 minutes to find a citation in Google, and I can't find one.

According to the Breast density site (kindly found by Beesie)

http://www.breastdensity.info/index.html

• Approximately 50% of women undergoing screening mammography are classified as having either "heterogeneously dense" or "extremely dense" breasts. For all of these women, the patient letter will inform them that they have "dense breast tissue."
• Only 10% of all women have "extremely dense" breast tissue, which is associated with a relative risk of breast cancer of approximately 2 compared with average breast density. 40% of women have "heterogeneously dense" breast tissue, which is associated with a relative risk of approximately 1.2. Therefore, breast density is not a major cancer risk factor.

Note that in one breast cancer risk model for individuals, breast density only increased the accuracy of breast cancer prediction for individuals from about 0.59 to 0.66 (with rather large 95% confidence levels) http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/98/23/1673.full.pdf

if you state something as fact you should be prepared to back up your statement.

That is not correct. You are either misinterpreting or spreading misinformation. No where have I seen someone say density is on par of having a BRCA mutation.

Most women who are pre-menopausal (66%) have dense breasts, either heterogenously dense (50-75% density) and a smaller number have extremely dense breasts (75%+ density). A few (25%) continue to have dense breasts after menopause. All this means is there is a higher ratio of parenchymal & connective tissue compared to fatty tissue. As parenchymal and connective shows up white on mammograms, just like cancer, mammograms are less accurate and may lead to higher false negatives. As fatty tissue is dark on mammograms, the white of cancer is very visible.

Certainly you can see why saying 66% of premenopausal women and 25% of post-menopausal women have a LIFETIME breast cancer risk ranging from ~37% - ~85% (BRCA+ ranges) is odd and incorrect? Knowing the average risk is 12% LIFETIME risk.

There is some studies to indicate density is its own risk factor - as in not only can it hide cancer in mammograms but it can also encourage tumour growth but this may also be related to having more places to grow in the first place, or because younger and denser tissue often means more estrogen uptake, etc.

In any event it it still not a risk factor on par with a BRCA mutation.

A fourfold to fivefold risk as indicated in the linked WSJ article also does not mean 4 times the average risk of 12%, it means fourfold to fivefold of your base risk...which can be as little as 2-4%. So...your risk can still be the average of 12%....not 48%.

As someone with high risk assessment of 40% (familial) my dense breasts do mean I definitely do not trust mammograms alone, and I may have some increased risk from density, but it does not mean I take my risk of 40% and do a multiple of x3 or x4. It just means it may be an increase to my present risk and is something to take into account when screening.

A positive takeaway here is that MRI is the new standard for high-risk, dense breasted women thanks to these studies. It really wasn't even three years ago when I began my harrowing journey. So keep the faith, friends. I believe there will be major strides in the years ahead.