Project Lead: Irmgard Fruehwirth
Authors: Irmgard Fruehwirth, Sarah Wolf
Publication: August 2022
Language: German (with English summary)
Breast cancer screening programs aim to diagnose cancer earlier and reduce surgical therapies (e.g. mastectomy) or breast cancer deaths. However, screening (mammography) also carries risks, such as false-negative results or false-positive suspected breast cancer cases, which can result in unnecessary diagnostic procedures (biopsies) and therapies that are burdensome for patients. Risk-based screening considers multiple risk factors compared to traditional age-based breast cancer screening. Breast cancer should thus be detected equally well or earlier, and possible disadvantages of age-based screening should be reduced, for example, through risk-based screening recommendations – less frequent mammographies in women with a low risk of breast cancer. Against this background, the objective of this report was to investigate the risk prediction quality of identified risk prediction models and their effectiveness in a risk-based screening program. In addition, organisational requirements for implementing a risk-based screening program were summarised.