Researchers from Kaiser Permanente have developed a new breast cancer model to help clinicians effectively predict the risk in Hispanic patients.

"Hispanics are the largest racial/ethnic minority group in the U.S., so it's important that the National Cancer Institute tool include information from these women in determining their risk score. Our model does that because it is based on data from Hispanic women and specifically tailored for them," said Matthew P. Banegas, PhD, MPH, lead author and researcher from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.

Based solely on data of Hispanic women, the National Cancer Institute’s Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool asks women about risk factors such as first menstrual period, age at the birth of a first child and family history.

"Prior studies have shown that Hispanic women born in the U.S. have a higher breast cancer risk than Hispanic women who emigrate here from other countries," said Banegas. "Our model includes data from U.S. and foreign-born women, so providers will be able to more accurately predict risk based on where the woman was born."

In the development of the model, researchers used data from 1,086 Hispanic women with breast cancer and 1,411 women without. With the inclusion of breast cancer incidence and mortality data from the California Cancer Registry and NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program and data from the Women's Health Initiative and the Four-Corners Breast Cancer Study, the model was shown to accurately predict the number of breast cancer cases.