Research

I am currently Chairman of the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study (IBIS) Steering Group and the ATAC trial. I have worked extensively in breast cancer and was the first to report the effect of tamoxifen on contralateral tumours as an indicator of its potential chemopreventive role. I demonstrated that a change in mammographic breast density on endocrine treatment is a biomarker for its effectiveness.

I am involved in studies on the use of HPV assays for cervical screening, the use of flexible sigmoidoscopy for colorectal cancer screening and markers for the behaviour of early prostate cancer.

I am the statistician for several major breast cancer trials and maintain an active interest in developing new statistical methodology, especially in the area of adjustments for non-compliance and cross-over, and multi-arm clinical trials.

Other Activities

• Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences
• Fellow of the Royal Society
• Science Strategy Committee member for Breast Cancer Now
• Research Strategy Group member for Prostate Cancer UK

Major Funding

• 2018-2023- CRUK, Catalyst, £1.4M
• 2017-2020- Barts Charity, Preventative Neurology, £1.5M
• 2014-2019- CRUK, Cancer Prevention, £6.9M
• 2007-2019- CRUK, IBIS II, £2M

Recent Publications

Predicting Expected Absolute Chemotherapy Treatment Benefit in Women With Early-Stage Breast Cancer Using EndoPredict, an Integrated 12-Gene Clinicomolecular Assay Soliman H, Flake DDII, Magliocco A et al. JCO Precision Oncology (1)

Screening performance of abbreviated versions of the UPSIT smell test. Joseph T, Auger SD, Peress L et al. J Neurol (2019) 266(2) 1897-1906
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31053960

Tranexamic acid for acute gastrointestinal bleeding (the HALT-IT trial): statistical analysis plan for an international, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Brenner A, Afolabi A, Ahmad SM et al. Trials (2019) 20(2) 467
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31362765

Breast cancer pathology and stage are better predicted by risk stratification models that include mammographic density and common genetic variants. Evans DGR, Harkness EF, Brentnall AR et al. Breast Cancer Res Treat (2019) 176(2) 141-148
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30941651

Comparison of risedronate versus placebo in preventing anastrozole-induced bone loss in women at high risk of developing breast cancer with osteopenia. Sestak I, Blake GM, Patel R et al. Bone (2019) 124(2) 83-88
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31028957

Predicting late recurrence in ER-positive breast cancer. Cuzick J Nat Rev Clin Oncol (2019) 16(2) 406-408
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31092902

Prediction of reader estimates of mammographic density using convolutional neural networks. Ionescu GV, Fergie M, Berks M et al. J Med Imaging (Bellingham) (2019) 6(2) 031405
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30746393

A case-control evaluation of 143 single nucleotide polymorphisms for breast cancer risk stratification with classical factors and mammographic density. Brentnall AR, van Veen EM, Harkness EF et al. Int J Cancer (2019) (2)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31251818

A Case-Control Study to Add Volumetric or Clinical Mammographic Density into the Tyrer-Cuzick Breast Cancer Risk Model Brentnall AR, Cohn WF, Knaus WA et al. Journal of Breast Imaging (2019) 1(1) 99-106

Evaluation of a validated methylation triage signature for human papillomavirus positive women in the HPV FOCAL cervical cancer screening trial. Cook DA, Krajden M, Brentnall AR et al. Int J Cancer (2019) 144(2) 2587-2595
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30412281

Biography

I received my BSc in Mathematics and Physics from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California. I then studied an MSc in Mathematics at the University of London. I obtained my PhD in Mathematics from Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California.

I was appointed John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at Queen Mary University of London. In 2017, I was awarded a CRUK Lifetime Achievement Award and a CBE.