Evidence map›Paper›PMID 19724274›Full record

ArticleBritish journal of cancer2009

An investigation into the performance of the Adjuvant! Online prognostic programme in early breast cancer for a cohort of patients in the United Kingdom.

H E Campbell, M A Taylor, A L Harris, A M Gray

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Article in British journal of cancer, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
36citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

36 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  18. Prognostic models in male breast cancer.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2016
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

H E CampbellDepartment of Public Health, Health Economics Research Centre, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Headington, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK. helen.campbell@dphpc.ox.ac.uk
M A Taylor
A L Harris
A M Gray

Funding

Medical Research Council G106/1196
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundAdjuvant! Online is an internet-based computer programme providing 10-year prognosis predictions for early breast cancer patients. It was developed in the United States, has been successfully validated in Canada, and is used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. This study investigates the performance of Adjuvant! in a cohort of patients from the United Kingdom.

methodsData on the prognostic factors and management of 1065 women with early breast cancer diagnosed consecutively at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford between 1986 and 1996 were entered into Adjuvant! to generate predictions of overall survival (OS), breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS), and event-free survival (EFS) at 10 years. Such predictions were compared with the observed 10-year outcomes of these patients.

resultsFor the whole cohort, Adjuvant! significantly overestimated OS (by 5.54%, P<0.001), BCSS (by 4.53%, P<0.001), and EFS (by 3.51%, P=0.001). For OS and BCSS, overestimation persisted across most demographic, pathologic, and treatment subgroups investigated. Differences between Adjuvant! predicted and observed EFS appeared smaller, and were significant for far fewer subgroups, only 5 out of the 28. The likely explanation for such discordance is that US breast cancer mortality rates (upon which Adjuvant! is based) appear to be systematically lower than breast cancer mortality rates in the United Kingdom. Differences in survival after recurrence would seem to be one contributory factor, with data suggesting that prognosis after relapse appears poorer in the United Kingdom. This may reflect the fact that new and more effective cancer drugs are often only approved for use in the United Kingdom many years after their adoption in the United States.

conclusionThe use of Adjuvant! by clinicians within the UK National Health Service is increasing, under the assumption that the programme is transferrable to the United Kingdom. At least for women treated for breast cancer at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, however, Adjuvant!'s predictions were on the whole overoptimistic. If the findings reported here could be shown to be generalisable to other areas of the United Kingdom, then thought should perhaps be given to the development of a UK-specific version of the programme.

Indexed as

InternetAdultAgedBreast NeoplasmsDisease-Free SurvivalFemaleHumansMiddle AgedNeoplasm Recurrence, LocalPrognosisSEER ProgramSoftware

Identifiers

PMID19724274
PMCPMC2768087

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.