Spatial Relations of Mammographic Density Regions and their Association with Breast Cancer Risk

We present a new approach for characterising the shape and the spatial relationships of different categories of density in mammograms. Descriptions of regions are encoded using a forces histogram method and across-image variation is captured using functional principal component analysis. We evaluate the association of the features with breast cancer based on a pilot case- control study using logistic regression with percent density, age, and body mass index included as adjustment variables. The spatial relations were significantly associated with breast cancer status (p= 0.009). Our approach can provide insights into the role of different density regions in the development of breast cancer.