Do model results suggest spontaneous regression of breast cancer?

✍ Scribed by Per-Henrik Zahl; Jan Mæhlen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 37 KB
• Volume: 118
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.21634

✦ Synopsis

Dear Editor,

The results of the interesting model study by Jonsson et al. 1 suggest that more breast cancers are diagnosed among screened than unscreened women. To explain the difference Jonsson et al. propose that for many screening-detectable tumors the growth rate is to slow to give rise to clinical detectable disease during the life time of the patient. If no spontaneous tumor regression occurs, it follows that most of the cumulative incidence difference between screened and unscreened should disappear if a prevalence screening had been done to detect latent disease in previously unscreened women at the end of the observation period.

From Jonnson et al.'s results it emerges that if women were followed from age 50 to 69, the cumulative 20-year incidence per 100,000 screened is 5,418 (2 3 260 1 246 3 8 1 293 3 10) while the cumulative 20-year incidence in unscreened is 3,770 (146 3 10 1 231 3 10) (calculated from Table III in their article; here 146 and 231 are calculated as 246/1.69 and 293/ 1.27). The difference is 1,648.