Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group (DBCG).

Abstract

Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group (DBCG) constitutes a multidisciplinary organization established in 1975 by the Danish Surgical Society. The aims of DBCG are first and foremost a nation-wide standardization of breast cancer treatment based on novel therapeutic principles, collaboration between experts handling diagnostic work-up, surgery, radiotherapy, medical oncology, and basic research, and, further, a complete registration of relevant clinical data in a national database attached to DBCG. Data are processed by the Secretariat personnel composed of statisticians, data managers, and data secretaries making current analyses of outcome results feasible. DBCG is run by the Executive Committee, which consists of expert members appointed by their respective scientific societies. From 1978, the DBCG project gained widely accession from participating units, and since then nearly all newly diagnosed breast cancer incident cases have been reported and registered in the national database. Today, the database includes approximately 80,000 incidents of primary breast cancer. Annually, the Secretariat receives roughly 1.5 million parameters to be entered into the database. Over the years, DBCG has generated five treatment programmes including in situ lesions and primary invasive breast cancer. Probands are subdivided into risk groups based on a given risk pattern and allocated to various treatment programmes accordingly. The scientific initiatives are conducted in the form of register- and cohort analysis or randomized trials in national and international protocolized settings. Yearly, about 4000 new incident cases of primary invasive breast cancer and about 200 in situ lesions enter the national programmes. Further, about 600 women with hereditary disposition of breast cancer are registered and evaluated on a risk scale. The main achievement of DBCG is a reduction of the relative risk of death of up to 20% and a 5-year overall survival ascending from 60% to roughly 80%.