About B-CAST
Breast cancer is not one entity, but different subtypes have different aetiologies and very different prognosis, ranging from highly fatal to fully curable cancers. In B-CAST tools will be developed to allow precise identification of the individual risk of breast cancer, the subtype of cancer that is most likely to develop and the prognosis of that particular subtype. This is important because the effectiveness of different preventive and early detection strategies varies by subtype, and subtypes vary in their prognosis and response to treatment. Of particular relevance is the identification of women at elevated risk of developing cancers that are most likely to be prevented by endocrine therapies, cancers that are likely to be missed by mammography screening (i.e. interval cancers), and fatal cancers.
To achieve this, within the B-CAST project existing resources, infrastructure and collaborations, established through the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC), will be exploited. Specifically, clinical information from ~80,000 breast cancer patients with risk factor information will be collated and new data on molecular characterisation of a subset of ~20,000 tumours from a unique worldwide collection from large-scale epidemiological studies, clinical studies and biobanks will be generated. Generating new genomic information based on IHC/ISH panels on ~20,000 tumours and targeted sequencing on a subset of ~10,000 tumours will inform risk and prognosis modelling of breast cancer. These models will help improve the existing online tools for risk and prognosis estimations to be used in clinical practice.
