A new screening tool for the general practitioner effectively identifies patients at risk for hereditary breast cancer, according to a new study. Published in the October 15, 2006 issue of CANCER (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study reveals a newly developed, simple scoring tool called the “pedigree assessment tool” (PAT) was 100 percent sensitive in identifying women at high risk for the hereditary breast cancer syndrome. The PAT outperformed another commonly used tool, the modified Gail model, in correctly assessing individual patient risk.
