Do You Need More Than a Mammogram?
For most average-risk women, screening starts with mammography at 40, not a reflexive stack of extra scans. What is worth personalizing is intensity: whether your risk justifies annual rather than every-other-year testing, 3D mammography, or supplemental magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Women with a calculated lifetime risk of at least 20%, an inherited pathogenic variant in a breast cancer risk gene such as BRCA1 or BRCA2, strong family-history patterns, or high-dose chest radiation before age 30 may need earlier or MRI-based screening; extremely dense breasts can justify a separate MRI discussion after a normal mammogram. The move that matters is a formal risk assessment, not an automatic extra test.