West Midlands Breast Screening Programme

Breast cancer recurrence audit

Around half of breast cancer patients have a recurrence. Recurrence rates can be reduced by aggressive treatment, but there is also a risk of over-treating patients who would never have had a recurrence.

The breast cancer recurrence audit examines predictive and prognostic factors for women diagnosed with breast cancer in the West Midlands between 1980 and 2004. The data were obtained from the WMCIU’s cancer registration database. Patients diagnosed with symptomatic breast cancer and those with cases detected by the national breast screening programme are included and compared.

The graph shows the rates of different recurrence outcomes based on the Nottingham Prognostic Index score.

The validity of the data was verified by a comparison with case-notes for patients diagnosed in 1996 or 1997 in New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton. This comparison found that the cancer registration data were as accurate as those that would have been obtained from a case-notes review.

Results from this audit have been presented in Recurrence PowerPoint presentations, a poster at the 2005 United Kingdom Association of Cancer Registries conference, and a poster at the 2005 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Peer-reviewed papers are in progress.

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