LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have developed a computer programme 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 programme 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.
Although the programme was originally developed to find women with a high risk of breast cancer to take part in the IBIS cancer prevention trial, its developers realised 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 programme 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 programmes 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 tumours.
Details of the IBIS programme 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 programme 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, individualised information as to what your personal risk factors are based on your personal history.”
MeSH Headings:Information Science: Medical Informatics: Medical Informatics Computing: Software: Information ScienceCopyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.