PhD defence

Prediction of contralateral breast cancer - Statistical aspects and performance assessment

• D. Giardiello

Date

Thursday 8 September 2022

Time

13:45 - 14:30

Location

Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden

Supervisor(s)

• Prof. M.K. Schmidt
• Prof. E.W. Steyerberg
• Prof. M. Hauptmann (Brandenburg Medical School)

Summary:

This PhD research is about risk prediction of contralateral breast cancer. Women with breast cancer often wonder whether they should have their other breast removed as well, to prevent a potential tumor from developing there. The exact risks vary significantly per person. The research in this thesis focuses on predicting each patient’s risk of developing a contralateral breast cancer using individual, clinical and genetic information available in large data sets based on current evidence from scientific literature.

The results of these studies evaluated whether the estimated individual risk may help physicians to identify women who are at an increased risk of developing another tumor and to comfort women who have a lower risk. In addition, guidance and recommendations about how to predict each patient’s risk and evaluate the corresponding performance are provided to assist patients and physicians’ decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances.

The studies in this thesis, combined with the available scientific literature, suggest that contralateral breast cancer risk prediction is unlikely to be improved without genetic information and rigorous statistical methodologies should be promoted to evaluate risk prediction performances.

PhD dissertations

Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.

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