Cancer Survival Predicted

Breast cancer patients can get their chances of survival predicted on a new website. It has been developed to provide greater accuracy through inputting data such as age, whether the tumour was detected by screening or the patient finding a lump, width of tumour and the grade of cancer.

Patients and doctors are then given a prediction of how likely the person is to survive the next five or 10 years, and any extra benefits from drug treatment.

The tool, named Predict, is free and has been developed by a team led by Professor Gordon Wishart, director of the Cambridge breast unit at Cambridge University Hospitals.

Experts used data from the Eastern Cancer Registration and Information Centre, for East Anglia, on more than 5,600 patients. This was then cross-referenced with data from the West Midlands to ensure an accurate picture could be built up of cancer survival across the UK.

"This new model uses large numbers of UK women diagnosed and treated in the NHS in recent times where we had up-to-date, accurate patient records as well as survival data," the Scotsman quoted Wishart as saying.

Meg McArthur, senior policy officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said the tool was useful but patients should discuss the findings with their doctor for proper treatment.

Advertisement

The plan is to continually update the website as more data becomes available. It is based on a study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

Source-ANI