RAPID RESPONSE FROM BMJ.COM

doi:10.1136/bmjusa.01060005

BMJ, doi: 10.1136/bmjusa.01060005, (Published 5 September 2002)

Letters

RAPID RESPONSE FROM BMJ.COM

The National Cancer Institute's Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This article originally appeared in BMJ USA

EDITOR $---$ I use the National Cancer Institute's Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool for risk stratification. This is the softwaretool used in the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial with tamoxifen.It uses the "Gail model," which includes known risk factors suchas age, personal history of breast abnormalities, age at menarche,age at first live birth, family history, breast biopsies, andrace. I have the software both on a PC and on my Palm PDA (PersonalDigital Assistant).* A PDA Gail model program is available athttp://pbrain.hypermart.net/medrules.html.

I give the patient her five-year risk of breast cancer, and I offer her mammography if she wishes. Mammograms after the ageof 50 offer a mortality reduction of about 25%; due to the greaterlikelihood of rapid progression in younger women, they shouldhave mammograms yearly instead of every twoyears.

Perhaps the time has . . . [Full text of this article]