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Assessing breast tissue density by transillumination breast spectroscopy (TIBS): an intermediate indicator of cancer risk

¹ Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 2M9, ² Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X5, ³ Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Science Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4N 3M5, ⁴ Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 2M9

Correspondence: Dr Lothar Lilge, Biophysics and Bioimaging, Ontario Cancer Institute, 610 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2M9, Canada. E-mail: llilge{at}uhnres.utoronto.ca

Risk assessment by parenchymal density pattern, a strong physical indicator of future breast cancer risk, is available with the onset of mammographic screening programmes. However, due to the use of ionizing radiation, mammography is not recommended for use in younger women, thereby rendering risk assessment unattainable at an earlier age. Visible and near infrared light was used on 292 women with radiologically normal mammograms to determine whether transillumination breast spectroscopy (TIBS) can identify women with a high parenchymal density pattern as an intermediate indicator of breast cancer risk. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the spectral data and generate density scores for each woman. To assess the accuracy of TIBS, logistic regression was used to calculate crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for each score. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves and area under the curve (AUC) were also calculated for the crude and adjusted logistic models. Optical information relating to tissue chromophores, such as water, lipid and haemoglobin content, was sufficient to identify women with high parenchymal density. The resulting AUC for the final and most parsimonious multivariate logistic model was 0.922 (95% CI 0.878–0.967). TIBS provides information correlating to high parenchymal density and is a promising tool for risk assessment, particularly for younger women.

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				K. M. Blackmore, J. A. Knight, and L. Lilge Association between Transillumination Breast Spectroscopy and Quantitative Mammographic Features of the Breast Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev., May 1, 2008; 17(5): 1043 - 1050. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]