Risk of Developing Breast Cancer by Utilizing Gail Model

Abstract

The Gail model has been widely used to quantify an individual woman's risk of developing breast cancer by using important clinical parameters, usually for clinical counselling purposes or to determine eligibility for mammography and genetic tests. The aim of the present study was to estimate the five-year and lifetime breast cancer risk among women in Rasht, Iran. In this cross-sectional study, 314 women were evaluated at Alzahra Women Hospital in 2007. Participants were ≥35 years of age without a history of breast cancer. Risk estimation was performed using the computerized Gail model. A five-year risk >1.66% was considered high-risk; 5.1% of women were high-risk. The mean five-year breast cancer risk was 0.8% (SD±1). Mean breast cancer risk up to the age of 90 years (lifetime risk) was 9.0% (SD±3.9%); 16.2% of the participants had a five-year risk higher than the average woman of the same age, and 18.2% had the same risk. Also for the lifetime risk, 11.1% of the women had higher risk and 1.6% had the same risk as the average woman. Routine use of the Gail model is recommended for identifying women at high average risk for increasing the survival of women from breast cancer.