The Città della Salute e della Scienza of Turin participates, through the Structure of Epidemiology and Screening (CPO Piemonte) and the Structure of Breast Screening, in the multicentre randomized clinical trial MyPeBS ("My Personal Breast cancer Screening") to evaluate the effectiveness of a mammography screening based on the estimate of the individual risk that each woman has of developing breast cancer.
MyPeBS is an international project, which has received funding from the European Commission in which screening programs from Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain participate. It is promoted by Unicancer (Paris), a vast network of French cancer institutes.
"Not all women are the same" comments Livia Giordano, principal investigator for Turin, head of the Epidemiology and Screening Structure (CPO Piemonte) of the Città della Salute. "The risk of every woman to get breast cancer varies according to many factors, related to reproductive and hormonal health, family history, density mammography and the presence or absence of some genetic polymorphisms linked to the risk of breast cancer. For this reason the research is moving towards a screening 'cut to size' compared to the model 'one size' which is based only on age to invite women to the screening."
"The advances made in the knowledge of tumor biology, in statistical risk assessment models and in imaging techniques, allow us today to experiment with the extension to all women of that approach custom that is currently used only in high-risk patients and that can allow to establish the interval and any additional exams more appropriate for each woman" adds Alfonso Frigerio, head of the Senology Screening of the Città della Salute and the Regional Reference Center for mammography screening.
MyPeBS aims to recruit 85,000 women in participating countries, of which 5000 will be enrolled in Turin as part of the Serena Prevention program.
Learn more on the research initiative or to know the modalities participation in the study there is the MyPeBS website.