PhD defence H.A. (Hiltje) Geuzinge

Dissertation in short:

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. In the Netherlands, women aged 50 to 74 years are invited for biennial mammography screening within a national screening program. Women at high risk of developing breast cancer due to a BRCA1/2 or TP53 pathogenic variant are invited for MRI and mammography screening outside the national screening program. Apart from these high-risk women, more groups of women may benefit from MRI screening. For example, women with extremely dense breast tissue: in those women, performance of mammography is generally poor and they have a higher breast cancer risk than women with a lower breast density. Also, women with a pathogenic variant in ATM, CHEK2 and PALB2 genes, and women with a breast cancer family history without a known a pathogenic variant in BRCA1/2 or TP53 genes may benefit from MRI screening. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate whether MRI screening would be an acceptable screening modality for women at increased breast cancer risk. Risk groups included in this thesis were women with a breast cancer family history without a known causative gene mutation, women with a pathogenic variant in ATM, PALB2 or CHEK2 genes, and women with extremely dense breast tissue.