A committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to discuss tomorrow whether the agency should require mammography facilities to report breast density, either in reports sent to referring physicians or in lay summaries sent to patients.
The meeting of the FDA's National Mammography Quality Assurance Advisory Committee (NMQAAC) is scheduled to be held in Gaithersburg, MD. The FDA is requesting guidance from NMQAAC not only about whether it should require facilities to report breast density data, but also if so, what kind of wording might be included in the report and/or lay summary.
The agency is also asking for guidance from NMQAAC about whether widespread use of full-field digital mammography (FFDM) and increasing use of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) might affect such a recommendation, as these modalities have greater potential for detecting cancer in dense breast tissue.
