Published on February 16, 2013 at 6:17 AM
Whereas a woman's age at first birth is used in the Gail model for white women, this factor is not used in the CARE model for African American women. The researchers conclude that age at first birth may be an important factor to include in a risk model for African American women in order to better predict breast cancer risk for women with a later age at first birth.
The authors also found that the CARE model, similar to other breast cancer risk prediction models, is not a reliable tool to predict a woman's individual risk of developing breast cancer. Additionally, it was less effective at predicting, at the individual level, ER-negative breast cancer than ER-positive breast cancer.
The authors conclude that there is a need to develop a better risk model for ER-negative breast cancer, a subtype that is associated with a poorer prognosis than ER-positive tumors and that is more commonly diagnosed in African American women than in white women.
Source: Boston University Medical Center