An evaluation of the prognostic model PREDICT using the POSH cohort of women aged ⩽40 years at breast cancer diagnosis

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in younger women (aged ⩽40 years) in the United Kingdom. PREDICT (http://www.predict.nhs.uk) is an online prognostic tool developed to help determine the best available treatment and outcome for early breast cancer. This study was conducted to establish how well PREDICT performs in estimating survival in a large cohort of younger women recruited to the UK POSH study. METHODS: The POSH cohort includes data from 3000 women aged ⩽40 years at breast cancer diagnosis. Study end points were overall and breast cancer-specific survival at 5, 8, and 10 years. Evaluation of PREDICT included model discrimination and comparison of the number of predicted versus observed events. RESULTS: PREDICT provided accurate long-term (8- and 10-year) survival estimates for younger women. Five-year estimates were less accurate, with the tool overestimating survival by 25% overall, and by 56% for patients with oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive tumours. PREDICT underestimated survival at 5 years among patients with ER-negative tumours. CONCLUSIONS: PREDICT is a useful tool for providing reliable long-term (10-year) survival estimates for younger patients. However, for more accurate short-term estimates, the model requires further calibration using more data from young onset cases. Short-term prediction may be most relevant for the increasing number of women considering risk-reducing bilateral mastectomy.