Percent mammographic density prediction: development of a model in the nurses’ health studies

Abstract

Purpose

To develop a model to predict percent mammographic density (MD) using questionnaire data and mammograms from controls in the Nurses' Health Studies' nested breast cancer case–control studies. Further, we assessed the association between both measured and predicted percent MD and breast cancer risk.

Methods

Using data from 2,955 controls, we assessed several variables as potential predictors. We randomly divided our dataset into a training dataset (two-thirds of the dataset) and a testing dataset (one-third of the dataset). We used stepwise linear regression to identify the subset of variables that were most predictive. Next, we examined the correlation between measured and predicted percent MD in the testing dataset and computed the r ² in the total dataset. We used logistic regression to examine the association between measured and predicted percent MD and breast cancer risk.

Results

In the training dataset, several variables were selected for inclusion, including age, body mass index, and parity, among others. In the testing dataset, the Spearman correlation coefficient between predicted and measured percent MD was 0.61. As the prediction model performed well in the testing dataset, we developed the final model in the total dataset. The final prediction model explained 41% of the variability in percent MD. Both measured and predicted percent MD were similarly associated with breast cancer risk adjusting for age, menopausal status, and hormone use (OR per five unit increase = 1.09 for both).

Conclusion

These results suggest that predicted percent MD may be useful for research studies in which mammograms are unavailable.

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