Breast Cancer Risk & Benefit Calculators

Great idea to post this, Efflorescing, thank you.

Thanks for posting these.

Thanks for posting those links....

I wish they would hurry up and get the NEW Adjuvant Online up and running

Your right....I cant acsess it!

Does this NewAdjuvant take Herceptin into consideration? Its been a while since Ive played around with Adjuvant.

Carole, your risk numbers are really good.  I'll post mine as a contrast.

My stats are:  55 yoa (age at dx), health "average for age", ER+ (PR-), HER2-, IDC 1.8 cm, Grade 2, 0/3 nodes (no positive nodes)...

NewAdjuvant Breast Cancer "Standard Version" (does not take Oncotype DX score into account)--

With no additional therapy:  10 year risk of BC recurrence (all types of recurrence--distant, local, contralateral) = 22%:  71 women alive without recurrence;  22 out of 100 have a recurrence;  7 out of 100 have died from other causes (unrelated to BC).

With Hormonal Therapy (Arimidex for me):  10 out of 100 women alive without recurrence because of Hormonal Therapy [i.e., 10 women in addition to the other 71 who would have been alive without relapse anyway].  That's a 10% absolute benefit from taking hormonal therapy for 5 years.

With Chemotherapy (TC = "2nd generation chemo" for me):  8 out of 100 women alive without recurrence because of Chemotherapy [i.e., 8 women in addition to the 71 who would have been alive without relapse after 10 years anyway].  That's an 8% absolute benefit from getting a 2nd-generation chemo but not taking hormonal therapy.

With Combined Therapy (2nd generation chemo followed by 5 years of AI):  14 out of 100 women alive without relapse with combined therapy (i.e., the total number of women alive without relapse after 10 years is 71 + 14 = 85 if all the women had 2nd generation chemo + AI).  That's an absolute benefit of 14%.

NewAdjuvant Breast Cancer Genomic Version 7.0 (provides approx. the same results as in an Oncotype DX report; does not give an accurate estimate of benefit from Chemo)

My stats are:  same as before, but with Oncotype DX score = 27 (10-yr risk of mets = 17% according to the Oncotype DX report) 

With no additional therapy besides hormonal therapy:  77 women out of 100 are alive without recurrence after 10 years; 16 out of 100 women have had a distant recurrence; 7 out of 100 women have died of other causes unrelated to BC.  (Note that "recurrence" with this version of Adjuvant is distant recurrence [mets] only).

My med onco estimated that chemotherapy would reduce my risk of distant recurrence (based on the Oncotype score) by about 1/3; tha's a 33% relative benefit.  Based on a recurrence risk of 16-17% after hormonal therapy (from the Oncotype results), that means the absolute benefit of including chemo in my tx regimen (in addition to the AI) was around 5 or 6%, which leaves my absolute risk of mets at 11-12%.

So, having had chemo and an AI, the likelihood that I will be alive without mets (distant recurrence) in 10 years is approx. 100 - 11 (mets) - 7 (death due to other causes) = 82%; the likelihood that I will be alive with no recurrence of any type in 10 years is 100 - 8 (recurrence) - 7 (death due to ther causes) = 85%.

YMMV, of course.  But, I thought it might be useful to look at the predicted benefits of hormonal therapy and chemo in someone who has a recurrence risk that's higher than most we see here.

otter 

Same here. I assumed this was because I was a new registrant and others able to access the site registered before the rule changes.

Did you try the second url on Efflorescing's list? http://www.lifemath.net/cancer/index.html

This uses the Adjuvant data and you can insert different therapies to see the different results. 

Currently they ask you for more information,  what is your title, specialty, number of years of in practice, whether or not you prescribe chemotherapy, etc.

Efflorescing: Thanks for the link. Those figures are similar to the  ones I was first given in my initial onc's office (it was a graph, with beautiful red, green, and yellow columns touting the benefits of each additional therapy).

Just wondering: have they taken into consideration the SIDE-EFFECTS of treatments (in calculating those survival rates)?

I also think the new version gives your risk of recurrence in 3 (or it might be 2) years. That might be why it's lower also.  It doesn't take into account the recurrences that happen after that timeframe.  Does anyone else know how to get the longer timeframe rates?

YIKES.....Did the lifemath one......DID NOT LIKE IT......uuugghhh trying to tell myself I am NOT a statistic......

LOVE U LADIES 

I find this calculator totally useless for me - and IMO it's scaring people to take chemo. it was the link the onc gave me when she couldn't (or wouldn't but I think she couldn't) answer my questions of what specific benefit I would have taking chemo. I had small lump, low proliferation, ER+, PR+ and HER-, which all is sign of a slow growing tumour.

The site didn't regulate for the HER variable, so the risk of recurrence for a HER- seems much higher when mixed with the HER+, nor did it regulate for proliferation rate which is the most important facor of deciding how agressive a cancer is. Besides that it only evaluate recurrence within 10 years, and I had the same cancer (it seems on the test taken, but they don't agree if it's a recurrence or a new one) 14 years ago. So if I where in this research I would show up as a success-story for the drug company, while maybe not benefitting at all from the treatment. 10 years is also to short time to decide long-time damage of the treatment, and maybe death because of that.

Later I've found out that tumours with low proliferation have much less benefit from chemo.  I'm so glad I said no-thanks to the treatment - and in fact I'm a bit grateful to the onc being such an ashole - it made the decision even easier. (she really was - she even put on the phone while I was talking to her)

I tried the Life math one, but I don't see anywhere that you get to put in radiation as a tx? What's up with that?  I am trying to decide the benefit to me of taking Arimidex, so I want to see what it says about lumpectomy and radiation alone as far as recurrence. Any body got any ideas?