"high risk for breast cancer" on medical records
Hi!
I'm 40 and just had my first mammogram. They called and want to do a follow up mammogram and ultrasound. I don't have the mammogram results in my online portal, but I noticed that under problems, it says "High risk for breast cancer." Can having dense breast tissue flag me for this problem in my records? I have no other family history or risk factors that I know of. Or is it more likely that the first ultrasound was suspicious? Thanks.
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Hi risa123, and welcome to Breastcancer.org,
We're so very sorry for the worries that bring you here, but we're glad you decided to join and post. Others will surely be by soon to weigh in with their thoughts and advice.
The main Breastcancer.org site does list dense breast tissue as a risk factor for breast cancer, but that alone should not necessarily determine that you're at "high risk":
"Women with dense breasts have a higher risk of developing breast cancer compared to women who don't have dense breasts. The greater the amount of dense tissue, the higher the risk. However, you don't necessarily have a high risk of breast cancer just because you have dense breasts. Breast density has to be considered along with other risk factors, such as age, family history, and any history of breast biopsies showing atypical cells or other changes that increase cancer risk."
See Dense Breast Tissue and Breast Cancer Risk and Screening for Women With Dense Breasts for more.
We hope this helps! Please let us know how your follow up goes!
--The Mods
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It's not likely the ultrasound. Even if the ultrasound shows something, there are lots of normal things that show up that require follow-up, but in the end turn out to be benign. So a single suspicious ultrasound would not make you high risk.
It's more likely a mistake. Mistakes like that happen all the time. The number of people with fully accurate health records could probably fit in a phone booth (are there still phone booths?).
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Thanks. A mistake would definitely be the best case scenario! And the first screening was a mammogram, but I wrote ultrasound by accident. My follow up is another ultrasound and a diagnostic mammogram. They noted that they are only concerned about the left breast, so I wonder if that makes it less likely that dense tissue is the issue because it seems like they'd both be dense, but who knows. I'm frustrated that they didn't post the full results from the mammogram.
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it is very common to get called back for additional imaging (mammogram and ultrasound) after a first mammogram, not because something is wrong but because they simplydon’t yet have a baseline to compare to. The high risk note is probably a mistake (someone ticked the wrong box on the computer) but definitely ask about it when you go back in - if they accidentally noted a family history, for example, you can try to get that corrected.
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