As voting wraps up this coming week for the American Medical Association's app challenge, we've learned some interesting details about a breast cancer app that could be a front-runner.
Breast surgeon Pond Kelemen created the Breast Cancer medical calculator app to consolidate the multiple tools physicians need to determine a patient's risk of developing breast cancer, according to a report this week at LoHud.com. The app brings together "the most commonly used formulas, guidelines, values, and calculations," such as the Gail, Claus and IBIS risk assessment tools, and the Tamoxifen benefit risk index calculator, AMA officials indicate.
"A woman would come in, and you go to the app, and plug in her clinical information--age, family history, et cetera--and it would tell us if she would qualify for aggressive monitoring with MRI, medication to decrease the risk, or whether it makes sense to do genetic testing," Kelemen says.
The app specifically checks for a patient's odds of having a genetic mutation that makes cancer more likely, and her chances of developing breast cancer within the next five years, as well as within her lifetime, LoHud.com reports.
The app eventually could make its way to market even if it's not an AMA winner. Kelemen tells LoHud.com he plans to find a partner to develop the app, whether it takes first prize or not in the contest.
About 200,000 AMA members will vote on the app by Friday. The winner will earn $2,500 and a major push for his or her app at the AMA's semi-annual policy-making expo in November.
To learn more:
- read the LoHud.com article
- check out the AMA's description of the new app