A comparison of various methods for measuring breast density and breast tissue composition in adolescent girls and women

This study compared different approaches to measuring breast density and breast tissue composition (BTC) in adolescent girls (n = 42, aged 14–16 years) and their mothers (n = 39, aged 36–61 years) from a cohort in Santiago, Chile. Optical spectroscopy (OS) was used to measure collagen, water, and lipid concentrations, which were combined into a percent breast density index (%BDI). A clinical dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) system calibrated to measure breast density provided percent fibroglandular volume (%FGV) from manually delineated images. After digitizing mammogram films, the percent mammographic breast density (%MBD) was measured using computer-assisted software. Partial correlation coefficients (r(partial)) were used to evaluate associations between breast density measures and BTC from these three different measurement approaches, adjusting for age and body mass index. %BDI from OS was associated with %FGV from DXA in adolescent girls (r(partial) = 0.46, p-value = 0.003), but not in mothers (r(partial) = 0.17, p-value = 0.32). In mothers, %FGV from DXA was associated with %MBD from mammograms (r(partial) = 0.60, p-value < 0.001). These findings suggest that data from OS, DXA, and mammograms provide related but distinct information about breast density and BTC. Future studies should explore how the information provided by these different devices can be used for breast cancer risk prediction in cohorts of adolescent girls and women.