© 2001 by Oxford University Press
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 93, No. 8, 581,
April 18, 2001
© 2001 Oxford University Press
NEWS |
Updated Breast Cancer Risk Disk Available
The Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Package, first developed by the National Cancer Institute in 1999, is now available in a revised second version. More commonly known as the "risk disk," the tool is used by physicians and other clinicians to help determine an individual woman’s 5-year and lifetime risk of developing invasive breast cancer.
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The major change to the risk disk, which originally included data applicable only to African-American and Caucasian women, is the inclusion of risk assessment data applicable to Hispanic women. There is not yet enough data about other minority groups to include on the disk.
A survey of users revealed that physicians and other clinicians wanted to be able to use the tool in new ways, and this led to other changes in the disk. For example, physicians can now save individual patient records. The revised tool also allows physicians to save data on all their patients and search the records for specific subsets of women, such as women who had their first child before the age of 20 or women who take birth control pills.
Women also benefit from the changes to the Risk Assessment Package. In the first version, a woman’s risk was compared with that of a woman who had no risk factors, and women did not find that comparison useful. A woman’s individual risk is now compared with women in her age range who have an average risk of developing invasive breast cancer.
Additionally, the Risk Assessment Package allows physicians and other clinicians to print individual records directly from the screen so that women can keep a copy of their 5-year and lifetime estimated risk assessments.
The Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Package CD Version, which contains both English and Spanish language versions of the tool, can be ordered or accessed online at http://www.cancer.gov/publications, or it can be ordered by telephone at 1-800-4CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
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