New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed new legislation on Wednesday that will require physicians to inform women if they have dense breasts along with the possible risks that can be present.
New Jersey becomes the fourteenth state to enact breast density inform legislation.
Additionally, the New Jersey law will require health insurers to cover supplementary breast screening — like ultrasound, MRI or tomosynthesis — and only if a woman has extremely dense breasts.
Connecticut and Illinois are the only other states that include insurance coverage for supplemental screenings. (Though a coverage bill has been introduced, Illinois still does not have an "inform" law that requires doctors to talk to women about the risks of their dense breast tissue.)
Connecticut was the first state to pass breast density inform legislation in 2009, followed by Texas, Virginia, California, New York, and most recently Hawaii, Maryland, Alabama, Tennessee, Nevada, Oregon, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and now New Jersey.
According to JoAnn Pushkin, founder of D.E.N.S.E. NY, 48 percent of U.S. women now live in states where density notification is required.
Studies have shown that women with dense breast tissue — which often makes it hard for radiologists to see abnormalities on a mammogram — have a higher rate of breast cancer. However, a recent study from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found breast density was not linked to increased cancer deaths. There is also debate in the medical community about what constitutes breast density in a woman, even though imaging equipment vendors have developed special qualitative software aimed at measuring breast density.
A federal breast density law, introduced by Reps. DeLauro (CT) and Israel (NY), is also making its way through Congress.
