Breast density represents the appearance of glandular and fibrous tissue in the breast on mammograms. It has been shown that high breast density is one of the strongest risk factors for developing breast cancer in the future. However the assessment of breast density is typically coarse, and is based on the area occupied by the dense tissue. It is more logical that cancer is risk is related to the volume of glandular and fibrous cells in the breast. Thus there is an interest in obtaining a quantitative measure of the breast composition, the volumetric breast density (VBD). We have developed a method to measure the VBD from digital mammograms, and validated its accuracy by comparing it with volumetric images from a prototype breast computed tomography system. The results indicate good performance of the method and guide us toward improvements.

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