Vascular breast calcifications, or 'calcification of the arteries' are benign calcifications and completely unrelated to breast cancer. Essentially they are calcium deposits that line the blood vessel walls in the breast. They are frequently discovered on a breast cancer screening mammogram, but are seldom even mentioned on a mammographic report except as an incidental finding.
Sometimes vascular breast calcifications are called "Moenkenberg" calcifications, and they usually involved the middle layer of arteries. The image below shows a blood vessel in the center, the muscular walls of the arteriole, and calcium deposits (vascular calcifications) in the walls.
Most breast calcifications are benign. They are very common and most women will in fact have at least one calcification appear on a breast mammogram. Certain patterns and shapes of calcifications such as irregular shapes and clusters of smaller 'microcalcifications' are commonly associated with early breast cancer development, but most calcification is the result of other biological processes, unrelated to breast cancer.
Breast Calcifications will appear as tiny white spots on a mammogram, and are the result of small calcium deposits within breast tissue. They tend to vinolve the enitre circumference of the peripheral arteries, and appear as 'diffuse' and 'thin' on the mammogram. Breast vascular calcifications (or BVCs) (also sometimes called Breast Arterial Calcifications- BAC ) will frequently appear as tubular or parallel 'tracks' on a mammogram. The breast Xray image below show vascular calcifications appearing in a diffuse, linear pattern.
Vascular calcifications in the breast are detected on breast cancer screening mammograms with increased frequency as women age, especially after menopause. Vascular calcification are rare in younger women, and tend to be found in women over the age of 60. Overall, vascular calcifications may appear on about 9% of all mammograms. But for women over 65, about 50% will have developed vascular calcifications.
The chances that vascular calcifications are related to breast cancer is less than 5%. It is far more likely that they are related to an overall degeneration in vascular health (atherosclerosis), bone-mineral health, or diabetes.