A statistical model of breast cancer tumour growth with estimation of screening sensitivity as a function of mammographic density

Abstract

Understanding screening sensitivity and tumour progression is important for designing and evaluating screening programmes for breast cancer. Several approaches for estimating tumour growth rates have been described, some of which simultaneously estimate (mammography) screening sensitivity. None of the continuous tumour growth modelling approaches has incorporated mammographic density, although it is known to have a profound influence on mammographic screening sensitivity. We describe a new approach for estimating breast cancer tumour growth which builds on recently described continuous tumour growth models and estimates mammographic screening sensitivity as a function of tumour size and mammographic density.