Dissertation 8 June 2018: Fredrik Strand

On Friday June 8, Fredrik Strand will defend his thesis "Determinants of interval cancer and tumor size among breast cancer screening participants". Opponent is Professor Emily Conant from the Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Fredrik's supervisors are Kamila Czene, Keith Humphreys and Per Hall.

Fredrik's thesis includes four studies focusing on different aspects of breast cancer screening and detection. Breast cancer is the most common cancer of women in Sweden and globally. In the more affluent countries, mammography screening has been in place for a few decades and has successfully reduced mortality. However, there is increasing interest in enhancing the impact of screening by going from the current age-based screening system to a risk-based system. There are two risk components that must be taken into account – the underlying breast cancer risk and the risk of delayed detection. Mammographic density, the amount of dense tissue in the breast, has been shown to be a risk factor for both.
The aim of the thesis was to identify novel determinants of delayed breast cancer detection by studying observed cases of interval cancer or large cancer at diagnosis. To summarize our findings, we have identified several novel determinants of delayed breast cancer detection, which could be further validated in trials of risk-stratified screening.

Time and location: 09:00, June 8 2018 in the lecture hall Petrén, Nobels väg 12B, Karolinska Institutet, Solna