Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 29, 2025
Modeling Breast Cancer in Human Breast Tissue using a Microphysiological System
Published on: April 23, 2021
The OncoSim-Breast Cancer Microsimulation Model
Jean H E Yong1, Claude Nadeau2, William M Flanagan2
1Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, Toronto, ON M5H 1J8, Canada.
Background:
OncoSim-Breast is a Canadian breast cancer simulation model to evaluate breast cancer interventions. This paper aims to describe the OncoSim-Breast model and how well it reproduces observed breast cancer trends.
Methods:
The OncoSim-Breast model simulates the onset, growth, and spread of invasive and ductal carcinoma in situ tumours. It combines Canadian cancer incidence, mortality, screening program, and cost data to project population-level outcomes. Users can change the model input to answer specific questions. Here, we compared its projections with observed data. First, we compared the model's projected breast cancer trends with the observed data in the Canadian Cancer Registry and from Vital Statistics. Next, we replicated a screening trial to compare the model's projections with the trial's observed screening effects.
Results:
OncoSim-Breast's projected incidence, mortality, and stage distribution of breast cancer were close to the observed data in the Canadian Cancer Registry and from Vital Statistics. OncoSim-Breast also reproduced the breast cancer screening effects observed in the UK Age trial.
Conclusions:
OncoSim-Breast's ability to reproduce the observed population-level breast cancer trends and the screening effects in a randomized trial increases the confidence of using its results to inform policy decisions related to early detection of breast cancer.
