Development of a risk assessment tool for projecting individualized probabilities of developing breast cancer for Chinese women

The optimal approach regarding breast cancer screening for Chinese women is unclear due to the relative low incidence rate. A risk assessment tool may be useful for selection of high-risk subsets of population for mammography screening in low-incidence and resource-limited developing country. The odd ratios for six main risk factors of breast cancer were pooled by review manager after a systematic research of literature. Health risk appraisal (HRA) model was developed to predict an individual’s risk of developing breast cancer in the next 5 years from current age. The performance of this HRA model was assessed based on a first-round screening database. Estimated risk of breast cancer increased with age. Increases in the 5-year risk of developing breast cancer were found with the existence of any of included risk factors. When individuals who had risk above median risk (3.3 ‰) were selected from the validation database, the sensitivity is 60.0 % and the specificity is 47.8 %. The unweighted area under the curve (AUC) was 0.64 (95 % CI = 0.50–0.78). The risk-prediction model reported in this article is based on a combination of risk factors and shows good overall predictive power, but it is still weak at predicting which particular women will develop the disease. It would be very helpful for the improvement of a current model if more population-based prospective follow-up studies were used for the validation.