Dutch researchers reporting Tuesday say, young women who are already at high risk of breast cancer due to family history or genetic susceptibility, increase their risk by going in for low-dose radiation from mammograms and chest X-rays.

They recommend such high-risk women, especially the ones who are under-30, consider switching to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), an alternative screening method that does not involve exposure to radiation.

For the study, data from six published studies involving 12,000 high-risk women from Europe and the United States was pooled together by the researchers. They found of the 8,500-women exposed to radiation from chest X-rays or mammograms before the age of 20, or had five or more exposures were 2.5-times, seemed far more likely to develop breast cancer than other high-risk women with no exposure.

The study findings apply only to high-risk not women of average risk for breast cancer, fuelling confusion about the risks and benefits of mammography screening.

Only last month, a federal advisory panel i. e. the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force to spare women in their 40s the worry and expense of extra tests for distinguishing between cancer and harmless lumps, made a recommendation against routine breast mammograms. Recommendations, which contradicted years of messages that it was essential to start routine breast cancer screening at age 40.

The American Cancer Society and other groups recommend women with a high risk of breast cancer should get both an MRI and mammogram starting age 30, as while being more sensitive than mammograms, MRIs are likely to turn up false-positive results.