Scientists have developed a computer program to evaluate a woman’s individual risk of developing breast cancer.
Charity Cancer Research UK said the IBIS risk evaluator uses information about a woman’s family history of the disease to determine whether she has a genetic propensity to develop it.
Other factors including age, height, weight, use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and whether a woman has had children are included to give a projected risk.
“For many women, particularly those who have a relative affected by breast cancer, it’s their biggest health concern,” said Professor Jack Cuzick, head of the research team.
IBIS is not the first computer program to evaluate the risk of breast cancer but Cuzick said it models more carefully what scientists know about the disease and includes more risk factors.
Program could become widely available
Although the program was originally developed to find women with a high risk of breast cancer to take part in the IBIS cancer prevention trial, its developers realized it would have a broader appeal because breast cancer it is such a common cancer.
“This tool will initially be available only to doctors. In the longer term we do see something that would potentially be available for the population at large,” Cuzick added in an interview.
The program gives a woman’s individual chance of suffering from breast cancer as a percentage along with the average risk. Patients with a high risk are given guidance and advice about weight loss, use of HRT and screening programs to detect earlier signs of the disease.
They can also join the IBIS trial to determine whether the drug anastrozole, which is used to treat cancer, can also prevent the disease in high risk women.
Anastrozole, which is made by AstraZeneca PLC under the brand name Arimidex, has already been shown to be as good or better than the drug tamoxifen in older women with hormone sensitive tumors.
Details of the IBIS program are reported in the journal Statistics in Medicine.
Cuzick said IBIS is already used in hospitals in Britain, the United States and Australia and could be made more widely available soon.
There are also plans to use the program to evaluate the risk of other illnesses such as heart disease and different types of cancer.
“We see it as the first step towards a project providing information to both men and women of their risk of major diseases and what they might do,” said Cuzick.
“Rather than having health education that is blanketed to everyone, this would be personal, individualized information as to what your personal risk factors are based on your personal history.”
