Daffodil Centre Researchers, Professors Nehmat Houssami and Dianne O’Connell together with her co-authors have had their paper: Long term risk of distant metastasis in women with non‐metastatic breast cancer and survival after metastasis detection: a population‐based linked health records study nominated as one the top ten original MJA research articles of the year 2022, as voted by the MJA editorial team.
Prof Houssami and the study’s first author, Associate Professor Sally Lord (from the University’s Clinical Trials Centre) have said that the focus on metastatic breast cancer was inspired by consumers’ need for information on the risk of developing breast cancer recurrence. Prof Houssami said ‘the majority of women who develop metastatic breast cancer would have been initially diagnosed with early or non-metastatic disease, so our study provides women and their clinicians evidence about the long term risk of developing breast cancer metastases, and although that risk persists it declines over time’.
The impact of this study is highlighted in the Daffodil Centre’s Dr Andrea Smith’s comment ‘this study has directly informed BCNA’s strategic planning and advocacy around metastatic breast cancer in Australia, in particular informing BCNA’s recent ‘Making Metastatic Breast Cancer Count’ Issues Paper that was launched in Oct last year’.
