Application of Canonical Correlation Analysis for Detecting Risk Factors Leading to Recurrence of Breast Cancer

BACKGROUND: Advances in treatment options of breast cancer and development of cancer research centers have necessitated the collection of many variables about breast cancer patients. Detection of important variables as predictors and outcomes among them, without applying an appropriate statistical method is a very challenging task. Because of recurrent nature of breast cancer occurring in different time intervals, there are usually more than one variable in the outcome set. For the prevention of this problem that causes multicollinearity, a statistical method named canonical correlation analysis (CCA) is a good solution. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to analyze the data related to breast cancer recurrence of Iranian females using the CCA method to determine important risk factors. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, data of 584 female patients (mean age of 45.9 years) referred to Breast Cancer Research Center (Tehran, Iran) were analyzed anonymously. SPSS and NORM softwares (2.03) were used for data transformation, running and interpretation of CCA and replacing missing values, respectively. Data were obtained from Breast Cancer Research Center, Tehran, Iran. RESULTS: Analysis showed seven important predictors resulting in breast cancer recurrence in different time periods. Family history and loco-regional recurrence more than 5 years after diagnosis were the most important variables among predictors and outcomes sets, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Canonical correlation analysis can be used as a useful tool for management and preparing of medical data for discovering of knowledge hidden in them.