While mammography has proven a valuable tool for detecting breast malignancies in older women, their younger counterparts have no such screening tool. A new procedure that measures electrical impedance across the breast at various frequencies may hold promise for this "forgotten" population. Investigators from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington used these "T-scans" to evaluate more than 1,000 women at moderate and higher risk and found those under 40 in the higher-risk groups who had a positive scan were more than seven times as likely to have breast cancer than those in the general public. According to the researchers, these higher-risk women would probably benefit from "earlier, additional breast imaging (e.g., mammography, ultrasonography)." Specificity for the test in the average risk group was 96.2%. 

				Stojadinovic A, Margolin M, Singh M et al. A novel technique for primary breast cancer screening in young women. 

While mammography has proven a valuable tool for detecting breast malignancies in older women, their younger counterparts have no such screening tool.