New model predicts ten year breast cancer risk

Breast cancer screening is vital but has challenges. While it reduces breast cancer deaths, it sometimes detects tumours that are not harmful (‘overdiagnosis’), which leads to unnecessary treatments. Currently, in risk-based breast screening, most models of risk work by estimating a woman’s risk of a breast cancer diagnosis. However, not all breast cancers are fatal, and we know that the risk of being diagnosed doesn’t always align well with the risk of dying from breast cancer once diagnosed. The new model developed by the team works to predict a woman’s 10-year combined risk of developing and then dying from breast cancer.