Generalizability of PGS313 for breast cancer risk in a Los Angeles biobank

Abstract

Polygenic scores (PGS) summarize the combined effect of common risk variants and are associated with breast cancer risk in patients without identifiable monogenic risk factors. One of the most well-validated PGSs in breast cancer to date is PGS313, which was developed from a Northern European biobank but has shown attenuated performance in non-European ancestries. We further investigate the generalizability of the PGS313 for American women of European (EA), African (AFR), Asian (EAA), and Latinx (HL) ancestry within one institution with a singular EHR system, genotyping platform, and quality control process. We found that the PGS313 achieved overlapping Areas under the ROC Curve (AUCs) in females of Lantix (AUC, 0.68; 95 CI, 0.65-0.71) and European ancestry (AUC, 0.70; 95 CI, 0.69-0.71) but lower AUCs for the AFR and EAA populations (AFR: AUC, 0.61; 95 CI, 0.56-0.65; EAA: AUC, 0.64; 95 CI, 0.60-0.680). While PGS313 is associated with Hormone Positive (HR+) disease in European Americans (OR, 1.42; 95 CI, 1.16-1.64), this association is lost in African, Latinx, and Asian Americans. In summary, we found that PGS313 was significantly associated with breast cancer but with attenuated accuracy in women of African and Asian descent within a singular health system in Los Angeles. Our work further highlights the need for additional validation in diverse cohorts prior to clinical implementation of polygenic scores.