Assessment of the clinical utility of the Gail model in estimating the risk of breast cancer in women from the Indian population

INTRODUCTION Breast cancer screening programmes are based on various risk models to assess the risk of breast cancer in the general population. The aim of the present study is to predict the efficacy of the Gail model (GM) in the Indian population. We did a retrospective calculation of the Gail score from the hospital records of patients with breast cancer and benign breast disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS The Gail score was calculated in three groups. The three groups were made up of 104 patients with confirmed breast cancer (Group A), 100 patients with confirmed benign breast diseases (Group B), and 100 patient attendants (Group C). STATISTICAL ANALYSIS The data analysis was done using SPSS 15.0, Medcal 9.0.1. RESULTS The median Gail score in the three groups of patients was 7.5±3.04 in patients with breast cancer, 8.2±1.4 in patients with benign breast diseases, and 7.8±1.7 in normal people. The median Gail score was lower in patients with breast cancer when compared with normal people. CONCLUSION The GM is not useful in identifying the risk of breast cancer in Indian women. There is a need for further studies to evaluate other genetic and environmental factors to create an appropriate model for the Indian population.