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Unlike in the US, women in India are not told if they have dense breasts. This could mean a missed cancer diagnosis… Breasts have glandular cells that produce milk and hormonal stimulation till a certain age makes them multiply. So, younger, premenopausal women have more dense breast tissue than fatty tissue (transparent to radiation, appears as black in imaging), explains Dr Vinay Deshmane, breast disease specialist and surgical oncologist at P D Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Mumbai. “In older women, especially those above 50, breasts have less density. So, mammograms diagnose cancers in them more effectively.”