McMASTER UNIVERSITY STATISTICS SEMINAR

Week of March 6 - 10, 2000

SPEAKER:	Dr Judy-Anne Chapman Henrietta Banting Breast Centre, Women's College Hospital, University of Toronto
TITLE:	"Behind the scenes of breast cancer research"
DAY:	Wednesday, March 8, 2000
TIME:	3:30 p.m. [Coffee & cookies in BSB-202 at 3:00 p.m.]
PLACE:	BSB-108

SUMMARY

This talk will contain an overview of my recent Breast Cancer research, including the results of modelling survival from Breast Cancer at the tumour sizes usually only detectable by mammography, for the four age groups with different screening guidelines; Women's College Hospital has had routine mammography for more than three decades.

The Cox proportional hazards model has been the standard for multivariate survival analyses for several decades. There is mounting evidence globally from a variety of different data types (clinical trials, research quality clinical databases, and retrospective data) that the non-proportionality is severe enough (or the Cox proportional hazards model not robust enough) that alternative analyses should be contemplated. Illustrative examples will be shown from the range of experience reported to date. The research databases of the Henrietta Banting Breast Centre with complete accrual of cohorts of primary Breast Cancer patients and 90% complete follow-up will be used to demonstrate a proposed parametric survival approach that has improved inference for investigational prognostic factors.

Statistical design in a Genome Project era will be discussed.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Judy-Anne Chapman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto, and a statistician at the Henrietta Banting Breast Centre, Women's College Hospital. She holds a B.Sc.in Honours Chemistry and Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Statistics - Biometry, both from the University of Waterloo. From 1974 to 1976 she was a Research Fellow of the National Cancer Institute of Canada. Since 1982, she has worked on the integration of (Bio)statistics into multi-disciplinary breast cancer research. Colleagues have included subject matter experts in the areas of Biochemistry, Biology, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Genetics, Medical Oncology, Microbiology, Nursing, Ophthalmology, Pathology, Psychology, Psychiatry, Radiation Physics, Radiology and Surgery.

REFERENCES

The references below, suggested by Dr Chapman as useful background for her talk, have been placed on reserve at Thode Library (STATS 770: Statistics Seminar). The three marked * are the most relevant.

[1] GENCOV: a Fortran program that generates randomly censored survival data with covariates. A Ciampi, J Chapman, S Hogg, J Thiffault. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 29:51-57, 1989. *

[2] Promotion of breast cancer screening in communities: A research agenda. K Olson, J Chapman, W Thurston, D Milligan. NCIC Sociobehavioural Cancer Research Network Breast Screening paper requested by the Advisory Committee on Cancer Control. Cancer Prevention and Control 1(3):213-221, 1997.

[3] Assessment of Tumour Size for Multifocal Primary Breast Cancer. EB Fish, JW Chapman, MA Link. Annals of Surgical Oncology, 5(5):442-446, 1998.

[4] Competing Causes of Death for Primary Breast Cancer. EB Fish, JW Chapman, MA Link. Annals of Surgical Oncology 5(4):368- 375, 1998.

[5] Competing Risks Analysis for Recurrence from Primary Breast Cancer. JW Chapman, EB Fish, MA Link. British Journal of Cancer 79(9/10):1508-1513, 1999.

[6] Assessing Genetic Markers of Tumour Progression in the Context of Intra-tumor Heterogeneity. JW Chapman, E Wolman, SR Wolman, Y Remvikos, S Shackney, DE Axelrod, H Baisch, IJ Christensen, RA White, LS Liebovitch, DH Moore, FM Waldman, C Cornilesse, TV Shankey. Cytometry 31(1):67- 73, 1998. *

[7] The Standardization of Estrogen Receptors. JW Chapman, BG Mobbs, WM Hanna, CA Sawka, KI Pritchard, HLA Lickley, ME Trudeau, ED Ryan, TC Ooi, DJA Sutherland, ER Tustanoff, DR McCready. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 45(5):367-373, May 1993.

[8] An Investigation of Cut-points for Primary Breast Cancer Estrogen and Progesterone Receptor Assays. JW Chapman, BG Mobbs, DR McCready, HLA Lickley, ME Trudeau, W Hanna, HJ Kahn, CA Sawka, EB Fish, KI Pritchard. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 57(5/6):323-328, 1996.

[9] Evidence for Bimodal Distribution of Breast Carcinoma ER and PgR Values Quantitated by Enzymeimmunoassay. BG Mobbs, JW Chapman, DJA Sutherland, E Ryan, ER Tustanoff, TC Ooi, PV Narasimha Murthy. European Journal of Cancer 29A(9):1293- 1297, 1993.

[10] An Improved Statistical Approach: Can it Clarify the Role of New Prognostic Factors for Breast Cancer? JW Chapman, D Murray, DR McCready, W Hanna, HJ Kahn, HLA Lickley, ME Trudeau, BG Mobbs, CA Sawka, EB Fish, KI Pritchard. European Journal of Cancer 32A(11):1949-1956, 1996. *