Calculate Your Own Breast Cancer Risk

Seemyrisk.com is simple to use and gives a more accurate prediction of breast cancer risk using a groundbreaking mathematical formula based on worldwide studies.

The calculator was invented by BCI executive director Professor John Boyages (Sydney), Dr Nathan Coombs (United Kingdom) and Professor Richard Taylor (Queensland), and developed with assistance from Microsoft.

Professor Boyages said seemyrisk.com makes complex health information easy to access and understand, which would help women to be more engaged in their health. “This is a great step forward for women who are anxious about developing breast cancer and want personalised and dependable information,” he said.

Professor Boyages has dedicated his professional career to assisting women in the fight against breast cancer. As a clinician he cares for thousands of women with breast cancer who have been diagnosed or treated every year.

Sample Results Page

Following two studies, the Women's Health Initiative published in 2002 from America and the Million Women Study in 2003 from Oxford University, a collapse in public confidence in HRT occurred. “The risks were over-inflated and not conveyed simply by leading experts or the media” said Professor Boyages.

HRT usage rates plummeted by nearly 70 percent after media reports said that HRT “doubled” the risk of developing breast cancer. “Information about HRT and breast cancer risk is often misunderstood and the media reports were misleading because they did not specify a baseline. Many women were over-estimating their risk of breast cancer and unnecessarily avoiding short-term HRT to deal with their menopausal symptoms”, said Professor Boyages. The idea for this simple calculator came out of trying to balance the “hysteria and anxiety that was generated in women”.

Dr Nathan Coombs said “the calculator finds the true underlying “population” risk of an individual before adding extra risk factors such as family history or hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which makes seemyrisk.com more reliable than other breast cancer calculators”.

The calculator displays results as a percentage and also as a figure, such as one in 12. The patient and her doctor may then decide that a small increase in risk is an acceptable trade-off for the other benefits of taking HRT, Dr Coombs said.

Calculator inventors Dr Nathan Coombs (left) and A/Prof John Boyages with Managing Director of Microsoft Australia Tracey Fellowes

“For women who can’t sleep at night because of hot flushes and night sweats, they might find this risk acceptable. The main thing is that the calculator can present what it means for a woman of a particular age who is considering taking HRT.”

Seemyrisk.com calculates an individual’s breast cancer risk for women of different races from 19 countries and states, including Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

“Our calculator uses a verified and patented technique, which has attracted much international interest. We were invited by the National Cancer Institute in the United States to work on US data using our calculator and have published seven peer reviewed publications in the area,” Professor Boyages said.

To access the new calculator women should visit www.seemyrisk.com.

Dr Nathan Coombs and Ms Deborah Kuchler demonstrate the calculator