- Age at diagnosis
- Tumor size (T)
- Nodal status (N)
- Tumor grade
- Years survived since initial diagnosis
- Subsequent years over which to estimate risk
Other Calculator Options
The ESTIMATE tool isn’t the only calculator that can help breast cancer patients better understand their prognosis after a breast cancer diagnosis. Here’s a few other interesting options that serve different purposes.
- CTS5. The CTS5 tool was developed for the prediction of late distant recurrence for women diagnosed with ER–positive, primary breast cancer who are recurrence–free after 5 years of endocrine therapy. Data from two large clinical trials (ATAC and BIG1–98) were used to develop the CTS5.
- PREDICT. The PREDICT tool applies to women who have had surgery for early invasive breast cancer and who are deciding which other treatments to have.
- MD Anderson Clinical Calculators. MD Anderson offers a variety of different calculators that apply to specific scenarios like the likelihood of residual cancer after a SLN dissection or experiencing additional positive non-sentinel lymph nodes without neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
A Note on Looking Forward
We’re learning more and more about how breast cancer works and how to overcome it as each day passes by. Today’s breast cancer diagnoses and treatment paths are nothing like they were decades ago. The ESTIMATE tool can provide helpful insights, but it does rely on past data to make predictions. Because so many improvements in treatment and survival have been made, this past data may in fact present a more pessimistic view. This data is valuable, but there is reason to be hopeful that recurrence odds may be even less likely than this tool presents.
