Abstract
There are varying definitions of women at high risk of breast cancer across different institutions, and there are reports suggesting that the breast cancer risk assessment tools have not been well integrated into clinical practice. In this study, we tried to investigate the perceived importance of different breast cancer risk factors by physicians in China. A cross-sectional survey involving 386 anonymous physicians was conducted using a 20-item, 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. The Kruskal-Wallis test and post-hoc pairwise comparisons were used to compare the differences in response. Most of the respondents were either breast surgeons/specialists (n=161; 41.7%) or medical oncologists (n=151; 39.1%), and the results showed that the breast cancer risk factors were not perceived as equally important. The weighting of each risk factor also varied depending on the physician’s medical specialty, location of practice, and the number of years of clinical experience. This study provides a more updated insight into the perceptions of physicians in China toward the breast cancer risk factors, as well as underlines the potential improvements in breast cancer risk assessment strategies that can be done.
Highlights
Breast cancer screening is considered as one of the most important ways to improve the survival rates of breast cancer patients (Huang et al, 2019), especially when considering the rapid increase of breast cancerAsian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, Vol 23 379Louis Wing-Cheong Chow et al burden in China over the years (Feng et al, 2018)
There are varying definitions of women at high risk of breast cancer across different institutions, and there are reports suggesting that the breast cancer risk assessment tools have not been well integrated into clinical practice
Most of the respondents were either breast surgeons/specialists (n=161; 41.7%) or medical oncologists (n=151; 39.1%), and the results showed that the breast cancer risk factors were not perceived as important
Summary
Breast cancer screening is considered as one of the most important ways to improve the survival rates of breast cancer patients (Huang et al, 2019), especially when considering the rapid increase of breast cancerAsian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, Vol 23 379Louis Wing-Cheong Chow et al burden in China over the years (Feng et al, 2018). With the improved understanding of known risk factors on breast cancer and development of breast cancer risk assessment tools, there is ample opportunity for promoting breast cancer prevention and risk reduction. We tried to investigate the perceived importance of different breast cancer risk factors by physicians in China. It was unknown whether their medical specialties, locations of practice, and the numbers of years of clinical experience would affect their perceptions toward the breast cancer risk factors, and we suspected that the differences in perceptions may affect the implementation and success of breast cancer risk assessment strategies in China. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies that have explored this aspect before
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