Approved research

A study to investigate the risk factors for developing Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS) in women from the UK Biobank

Lay summary

Although DCIS is considered a pre-invasive condition, it can progress to invasive breast cancer or death over a number of years. It is unclear which women with DCIS will develop invasive cancer within their lifetime and over what period of time. This project will investigate the risk factors for developing DCIS and its subsequent progression to invasive cancer and aim to quantify a woman?s risk of disease progression based on her lifestyle, dietary, socioeconomic, medical and genetic factors in order to help clinicians tailor diagnosis/screening, follow-up and treatment options according to individual patient risk-profiles. The objective of the UK Biobank is to undertake research in improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious illnesses including breast cancer. By investigating the risk factors for developing DCIS or having a poorer outcome after DCIS treatment, it may be possible to quantify a woman?s risk based on her individual risk factors and so tailor prevention, diagnosis, and treatment options accordingly. Hence the aim of this project is in synergy with that of the UK Biobank and could help to provide innovative new directions to improve healthcare for DCIS patients. Of the women within the UK Biobank diagnosed with DCIS, analyses will be conducted of patient, medical, socioeconomic, dietary, lifestyle and genetic factors to investigate possible risk factors for DCIS when compared against age matched controls without DCIS or invasive breast cancer and with those women who were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer without a prior diagnosis of DCIS. Further analyses of the women with DCIS will be conducted according to whether or not they were subsequently diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Three groups ((i) DCIS patients (n=2000 women), (ii) age matched controls (n=8000 women), and (iii) primary invasive breast cancer patients (n=2000), ensuring at least 4 women as controls for each woman with DCIS or invasive breast cancer) will be included in this study with a total of approximately 12,000 women. After 12-18 months a further data request will be made in order to increase the sample size of the cohort further by including new incident DCIS cases.