Key facts
- Current UK breast cancer screening guidelines miss up to 95% of women under 50 at higher risk.
- The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) criteria primarily rely on family history.
- A new tool, Boadicea, uses a multifactorial approach to assess risk, identifying eight times more women under 50 at higher risk.
- 73% of women under 50 with breast cancer have no family history.
Current UK guidelines for breast cancer screening in women under 50 are failing to identify a significant majority of those at higher risk, according to a study published in the British Journal of Cancer. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Cancer Research found that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) criteria, primarily used by GPs, focus heavily on family history and overlook other crucial risk factors like lifestyle and reproductive history.
The study utilized a new risk assessment tool called Boadicea, which integrates family history, reproductive history, lifestyle, and genetic information. Researchers estimate that Boadicea could identify eight times as many women under 50 at higher risk compared to the current Nice guidelines. Specifically, the Nice criteria miss up to 95% of women under 50 who will develop breast cancer within a decade, with a key reason being that 73% of these women have no family history of the disease.
Experts are calling for a review of the Nice guidelines to improve early detection and intervention, which can lead to better treatment outcomes or even prevention. However, Nice stated that while they welcome the findings and recognize the potential of multifactorial risk models, the current evidence does not yet warrant a change to their existing guidelines.