Opportunities for personalised follow-up in breast cancer: the gap between daily practice and recurrence risk

Follow-up guidelines barely diverge from a one-size-fits-all approach, even though the risk of recurrence differs per patient. However, the personalization of breast cancer care improves outcomes for patients. This study explores the variation in follow-up pathways in the Netherlands using real-world data to determine guideline adherence and the gap between daily practice and risk-based surveillance, to demonstrate the benefits of personalized risk-based surveillance compared with usual care.

Patients with stage I–III invasive breast cancer who received surgical treatment in a general hospital between 2005 and 2020 were selected from the Netherlands Cancer Registry and included all imaging activities during follow-up from hospital-based electronic health records. Process analysis techniques were used to map patients and activities to investigate the real-world utilisation of resources and identify the opportunities for improvement. The INFLUENCE 2.0 nomogram was used for risk prediction of recurrence.

In the period between 2005 and 2020, 3478 patients were included with a mean follow-up of 4.9 years. In the first 12 months following treatment, patients visited the hospital between 1 and 5 times (mean 1.3, IQR 1–1) and received between 1 and 9 imaging activities (mean 1.7, IQR 1–2). Mammogram was the prevailing imaging modality, accounting for 70% of imaging activities. Patients with a low predicted risk of recurrence visited the hospital more often.

Deviations from the guideline were not in line with the risk of recurrence and revealed a large gap, indicating that it is hard for clinicians to accurately estimate this risk and therefore objective risk predictions could bridge this gap.