Can Newly Identified Genetic Variants Help Predict Risk for Breast Cancer?

Risk assessment combining genetic information and clinical risk factors did not substantially improve the ability to predict risk over standard clinical risk models.

Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with breast cancer. However, the clinical usefulness of this information is uncertain. Investigators developed different risk models using traditional breast cancer risk factors as well as 10 SNPs associated with breast cancer to assess whether this new genetic information can improve breast cancer risk assessment. Risk models were tested using data from 5590 breast cancer patients and 5998 healthy controls, and model performance was assessed with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and calculation of area under the curve (AUC).

The AUC (expressed as a percentage) represents the probability that for any two ran…

Reviewing Author

Virginia Kaklamani, MD, DSc

Can Newly Identified Genetic Variants Help Predict Risk for Breast Cancer?

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Reviewing Author