Predicts global health status upon completion of adjuvant chemotherapy in early breast cancer.
Effect on QoL is nonlinear — both younger (<40) and older (>70) patients tend to experience greater decline, especially with mastectomy.
Mastectomy is associated with significantly lower post-treatment QoL across all score thresholds vs breast-conserving surgery (BCS). Effect is largest at age extremes.
Planned adjuvant regimen. In the source study, regimen type had a modest effect on global health status compared to surgery and perceived recurrence risk.
Pathological stage at surgery. Stage III shows ~81% posterior probability of additional QoL harm vs Stage II, though effect size is small.
Full axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) vs sentinel node biopsy. ALND carries ~79% posterior probability of harm on QoL.
The patient’s subjective sense of their recurrence risk after meeting the oncologist. The strongest psychological predictor of post-treatment QoL — often rated “high” even at Stage I.
45%
EORTC QLQ-C30 items 29–30: “Overall health” and “Overall quality of life” in the past week, each scored 1–7 then mapped to 0–100. The most predictive single variable.
65 / 100
⚠️ Stage IV is outside this model's scope. The source study enrolled stages I–III (resected, non-metastatic) only. QoL predictions and mortality figures shown for Stage IV are extrapolations and should not be used clinically.
Reading the results
QoL distribution: Predicted probability across 13 levels of the EORTC QLQ-C30 Global Health Status scale at ~6 months (end of adjuvant chemotherapy). Higher scores are better. The bars show where on the 0–100 scale this patient profile is most likely to land.
Median & credible interval: The median is the central prediction; the 95% CI reflects model uncertainty from the Bayesian posterior. This is not a guarantee — individual outcomes vary.
Mortality bar: Approximate 10-year absolute breast cancer mortality reduction, stratified by TNM stage and regimen (EBCTCG 2012/2019 meta-analyses). Higher stage = higher baseline risk = larger absolute benefit from the same regimen. Individual benefit further depends on tumour biology (ER/PR/HER2, Ki-67).
Model: Carmona-Bayonas A et al. npj Breast Cancer 2021;7:92. doi:10.1038/s41523-021-00296-8 • Study population: early breast cancer, stages I–III, n=219, adjuvant chemotherapy only.