The risk of developing breast cancer in relation to mammography findings.

Several studies have shown that it is possible to use the parenchymal patterns disclosed by mammography to differentiate various groups with a high risk of developing breast cancer. Accordingly, a patient series of 597 women who had undergone mammography during the period 1971-1975 was examined and classified according to Wolfe's system. A follow-up of 513 patients five to nine years after the mammography revealed no statistical difference in the tendency to develop breast cancer using Wolfe's parenchymal pattern method. The study shows that those in the group with pronounced fibroadenomatous changes, which were primarily studies radiologically, have an incidence of breast cancer three times as high as that found in the population as a whole.