The association between mammography reports and women’s age using retrospective data form a medical system

TL;DR

This study found that older age and being overweight are linked to more severe mammography results in women.

Contribution

The study identifies age, BMI, and marital status as factors associated with BI-RADS categories in mammography reports.

Findings

Older women (>69 years) had higher odds of BI-RADS categories 4 and 5.

Overweight women showed increased odds for left-lateral BI-RADS categories 4 and 5.

Separated/divorced/widowed women had higher odds of BI-RADS categories 4 and 5.

Abstract

We explored the association of age, obesity and marital status with Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) category distribution in women, using retrospective mammography data from a medical system, as only a few studies have investigated this association.

This retrospective study collected the first left-lateral and right-lateral mammography data of 4,165 and 4,213 women from 2,011 to 2020 in a medical system, respectively, to be analyzed. We examined the association of age, body mass index (BMI), and marital status with BI-RADS categories using the Chi-square test and multinomial logistic regression.

The proportion of BI-RADS category 0 decreased with age, but the proportion of BI-RADS categories 4 and 5 increased with age. Women aged >69 years had a higher proportion of BI-RADS categories 4 and 5 [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.34 for left-lateral mammography and aOR = 1.29 for right-lateral mammography data] than women aged 45–69 years. Overweight was associated with the rate of the proportion of BI-RADS categories 4 and 5 of the left-lateral breast (aOR = 1.26, p < 0.05) but not with the right-lateral breast.

Age >69 years, being overweight, and being separated/divorced/widowed were the factors associated with BI-RADS categories 4 and 5 of women who underwent mammography.