Revolutionary Online Tool Helps Kiwi Women To Manage Their Risk Of Breast Cancer

Just launched by New Zealand Family Cancer Service, BRRISK is an online breast cancer risk assessment tool that uses a University of Cambridge algorithm to help New Zealand women manage their risk of breast cancer. It also helps medical professionals provide patients with a more personalised approach to breast cancer screening and lifestyle advice.

Costing just $35 to join, then $5 a year thereafter, BRRISK is simple to use. Hosted on secure cloud servers in New Zealand, BRRISK captures and analyses each member’s health data to generate a personalised report. It is similar to PREDICT, an established digital tool that helps GPs make decisions about cardiovascular disease for patients. A key difference with BRRISK is that it involves both the patients and their GPs.

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Auckland GP Dr Susan Smith explains.

“Behind BRRISK is an algorithm developed by Cambridge University that considers all risk factors. BRRISK helps with important decisions, like how often to get a mammogram and how to modify your lifestyle to lower your individual risk of getting breast cancer, which I think is really empowering. As a New Zealand GP who wants to do more about prevention and early detection of breast cancer, I think BRRISK is revolutionary. I’m saying ‘do it’ to my patients.

“When a woman joins BRRISK, completes the data-capture process and generates a breast cancer risk assessment report, a copy is emailed directly to her and her GP. As far as watching for breast cancer is concerned, I can do a better job when the patient I’m working with is a BRRISK member.”

Breast cancer specialists recognise BRRISK as an important initiative to help primary care providers offer prevention and detection advice that is tailored to each patient.

“BRRISK helps time-poor GPs stratify patients according to risk. This means we see those women who really need to be seen, and can apply evidence-based guidelines to screening and surveillance,” says oncoplastic breast surgeon Dr Michael Puttick.

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To provide personalised reports for each member, BRRISK draws on mutation screening information for high and moderate risk breast cancer genetic susceptibility variants, explicit family history, personal lifestyle, hormonal and reproductive risk factors, and mammographic density. Use of BRRISK doesn’t replace mammographic screening; it’s a complementary tool that empowers women to participate more in reducing their personal risk of breast cancer.

Anyone living in New Zealand who hasn’t had a breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer or DCIS diagnosis can join BRRISK online from the BRRISK website – www.brrisk.co. BRRISK can also be given as a gift voucher.

ABOUT BRRISK

Funded by New Zealand Family Cancer Service, BRRISK was developed by a team of medical professionals, genetics experts and medical software specialists who recognised that New Zealanders needed a way to have more control over their personal risk of breast cancer.

BRRISK uses the BOADICEA algorithm developed at the University of Cambridge Department of Public Health and Primary Care in the UK. BOADICEA is the first comprehensive validated model that allows for reliable breast cancer risk prediction in unaffected women.

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