Sonographic breast density pattern among Nigerian women in Zaria

Background: Increased breast density is a known risk factor for breast cancer; as such, it is a pertinent consideration for any breast cancer awareness and screening exercise. Ultrasound is the most frequently requested breast imaging examination and is the preferred imaging modality for assessing dense breasts. Objectives: This paper aims at describing the sonographic breast density patterns among women in Zaria using the American College of Radiology breast imaging and reporting data system (BIRADS) lexicon to estimate the prevalence of different breast sonographic patterns in Zaria and to relate this with age, parity, and menopausal status of the women studied. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study of the sociodemographic and sonographic data of 503 women who presented for breast ultrasound at the Radiology department of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching hospital, Zaria, Nigeria between July 2014 and December 2016. Breast scans were performed using a Mindray DC-8 Ultrasound machine, equipped with a 7–12 mHz transducer. Data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences software for windows version 20 (SPSS, Inc. Chicago Illinois, USA). Results: Five hundred and three women participated in the study. There were 415 premenopausal and 88 postmenopausal women whose mean age was 36.1 ± 12.8 years. The most common breast density pattern was heterogenous (49.1%), which was independent of family history of breast cancer. The least common breast density pattern was homogenous fibroglandular. Breast density decreased significantly with increasing age, parity, and menopausal status ( P Conclusion: Heterogenous pattern (ACR type 3) was the predominant breast density pattern in this study. Because this breast pattern has been significantly associated with breast cancer, further studies are needed to estimate cancer risk among our women.