A widespread checklist to assess risk for BreastCancer. It uses five significant predictors of a woman's lifetime breast cancer risk:

• current age
• age at menarche
• number of breast biopsies
• age at first live birth
• number of first-degree relatives with breast cancer

Each answer gets multiplied by a coefficient in a linear formula; the result, called the "Gail Risk", purports to inform doctors if they should order more tests.

The average "risk" for 85-year old women in the USA is 12%.

Complaints

The problem with this model is 4 out of 5 questions are fuzzy. Only a breast biopsy can yield an exact number. The current age is not the same as the biological age; the "number of first-degree relatives with breast cancer" filters out those who were at risk but got lucky, etc.

The problem with the GRM is doctors use it widely as if it were a direct Dx tool; not simply an "index of suspicion" thing. It also spreads the psychological meme among impressionable doctors that "age is bad for you".

"The Gail Model": http://www.intouchlive.com/cancergenetics/gail.htm