Emerging Concepts in Breast Cancer Risk Prediction

Developing improved methods for breast cancer risk prediction could facilitate the targeting of interventions to women at highest risk, thereby reducing mortality, while sparing low-risk women the costs and inconvenience of unnecessary testing and procedures. However, currently available risk assessment tools fall short of achieving accurate individual risk prediction, precluding implementation of this approach. Improving these tools will require the identification of new methods of assessing risk and increasing the accuracy of existing risk indicators. We review four emerging topics that may have importance for breast cancer risk assessment: etiological heterogeneity, genetic susceptibility, mammographic breast density and assessment of breast involution.