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Review
. 2016 Sep 20;18(1):91.
doi: 10.1186/s13058-016-0755-8.

Beyond breast density: a review on the advancing role of parenchymal texture analysis in breast cancer risk assessment

Aimilia Gastounioti  1 , Emily F Conant  1 , Despina Kontos  2
Affiliations
Review

Beyond breast density: a review on the advancing role of parenchymal texture analysis in breast cancer risk assessment

Aimilia Gastounioti et al. Breast Cancer Res. .

Abstract

Background: The assessment of a woman's risk for developing breast cancer has become increasingly important for establishing personalized screening recommendations and forming preventive strategies. Studies have consistently shown a strong relationship between breast cancer risk and mammographic parenchymal patterns, typically assessed by percent mammographic density. This paper will review the advancing role of mammographic texture analysis as a potential novel approach to characterize the breast parenchymal tissue to augment conventional density assessment in breast cancer risk estimation.

Main text: The analysis of mammographic texture provides refined, localized descriptors of parenchymal tissue complexity. Currently, there is growing evidence in support of textural features having the potential to augment the typically dichotomized descriptors (dense or not dense) of area or volumetric measures of breast density in breast cancer risk assessment. Therefore, a substantial research effort has been devoted to automate mammographic texture analysis, with the aim of ultimately incorporating such quantitative measures into breast cancer risk assessment models. In this paper, we review current and emerging approaches in this field, summarizing key methodological details and related studies using novel computerized approaches. We also discuss research challenges for advancing the role of parenchymal texture analysis in breast cancer risk stratification and accelerating its clinical translation.

Conclusions: The objective is to provide a comprehensive reference for researchers in the field of parenchymal pattern analysis in breast cancer risk assessment, while indicating key directions for future research.

Keywords: Breast cancer risk; Digital mammography; Parenchymal texture analysis; Quantitative breast imaging.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Regions of interest (ROIs) used in texture analysis. a single ROIs selected in the retro-areolar breast area, b the entire breast and the largest rectangular box inscribed within the breast, studied as single ROIs, c multiple ROIs at multiple scales of density, and d multiple ROIs defined by a lattice covering the entire breast
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Characterization of parenchymal patterns using computerized texture analysis. Examples of feature maps showing the distribution of texture values in the breast, generated by the application of the lattice-based strategy of Zheng et al. [51] to an MLO-view full-field digital mammogram. (a) Grey-level histogram, (b) Co-occurrence, (c) Run-length, (d) Structural, and (e) Multi-resolution
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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