Residual cancer burden after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and long-term survival outcomes in breast cancer: a multicentre pooled analysis of 5161 patients
Residual Cancer Burden (RCB)
In breast cancer, analysis from clincial trials has demonstrated that the ‘Residual Cancer Burden’ (RCB) score can predict recurrence and survival after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Large scale analysis to validate this in breast cancer subtypes has not previously been possible.
Accurately redicting outcome after neoadjuvant chemotherapy is essential for patients to decide on whether or not to undergo additional more intensive treatment after surgery.
Global Collaboaration
Edinburgh was one of eight cancer centres from accross the world that was able to contribute real world data to a pooled analysis that validated RCB as a strong predictor in all breast cancer subtypes.
Only a small number of cancer centres world wide maintain electronic records with sufficient quality to contribute to a pooled analysis of this nature. A lot of work was needed to translate the local data into a Common Data Model to allow joint analysis.
The Future of Real World Data Science
This way of working is seen as a future model for large scale collaborative analysis that protects the confidentiality of patient data. Robust anonymisation and modern data science methods were employed.
The pooled database is now available for researchers at all contributing cancer centres to conduct further informative analysis.
The compete research article is now available in The Lancet Oncology. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S1470-2045(21)00589-1