High Risk Indicators
MRS is the only company in the industry offering three separate high risk indicators, to alert radiologists of potentially at-risk patients at the very point they are interpreting a mammogram.
The importance of relying on more than one high risk model has been outlined by the National Cancer Institute. They say that the Gail model alone significantly underestimates breast cancer risk for women with genetic susceptibility. For more information click here.
That's why MRS is leading the way in high risk evaluation. Our reporting system includes three high risk indicators. Those indicators show the results of Gail model calculations, the NCI model and a model that indicates if a patient is at high risk based on genetic factors.
In MRS, if a patient's demographic history indicates the potential of an inherited risk for breast cancer, it will alert the radiologist that the patient could benefit from increased surveillance or genetic testing. That genetic testing would identify a patient with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. Those genes are known as tumor suppressors and have been linked to both hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. To learn more visit The National Cancer Institute's site.
When a patient tests positive for either BRCA1 or BRCA2, the risk of developing breast cancer before 50 years old can be as high as 50%, and raise the risk of breast cancer by age 70 to nearly 87%. For a radiologist evaluating breast images, knowing at the moment of interpretation whether or not a patient ranks as high risk among 3 different models can make a life saving difference in evaluating findings.
MRS is proud to be leading the way in helping doctors not only fight breast cancer, but prevent it. If a patient is found to have BRCA1 or BRCA2, The American Cancer Society recommends an MRI screening as an adjunct to mammography. A breast care provider might also recommend more frequent mammograms for this at risk population. Also, those with the gene can pursue chemoprevention, with drugs like Tamoxifen, under the care of their physician to reduce the risk of breast cancer by more than 50% in contralateral breast cancers. There is also the option of preventative surgery to removed potentially cancerous tissue.
A recent study at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Care Center found that women with a known BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation are currently being diagnosed 6 years earlier than relatives of the previous generation.
For more on how the MRS risk flags are implemented, please download our whitepaper.