Genetic and Environmental Determinants of Mammographic Density: A Twins and SIsters Study

Abstract

Breast cancer is a major cause of early death and disability in Australian women. Breast density, a characteristic of women's breast that can be mesured by mammograms such as those conducted by BreastScreen, has been shown by a number of large studies to be a major risk factor for breast cancer. It is a characteristic that cannot be measured by breast examination, but is very well measured by a breast scan. Although breast density decreases with age at and after menopause, there is a large difference in breast density across women of the same age. Identifying the reasons why women of the same age differ so much in breast density will lead to a better understanding of the causes of breast can..

Related publications (1)

Inference about causation from examination of familial confounding: Application to longitudinal twin data on mammographic density measures that predict breast cancer risk

J Stone, GS Dite, GG Giles, J Cawson, DR English, JL Hopper

2012-07-01

Background: Mammographic density is a strong risk factor for breast cancer. It is unknown whether there are different causes of va..