Gene-activity Test decides who Can Skip Chemotherapy

However, these studies involved fewer patients than the current study, which enrolled 10,253 women with a certain kind of breast cancer known as hormone-receptor positive, HER2 negative cancer.

Concerns about the safety of LHRHa treatment have been raised, particularly for breast cancers that are driven by hormones.

He added, “To a few extent, it’s surprising because cancer treatment is quite toxic, and we know most chemotherapy drugs cross the placenta”.

A test reveals which breast cancer patients can safely avoid the rigors of chemotherapy, and a local oncologist played a major role.

For the trial, women whose tumors scored 10 or lower only received hormone therapy rather than chemotherapy.

Dr. Sparano continued: “This is the first prospectively conducted clinical trial evaluating this assay-or any multigene expression assay for that matter-in which patients with early stage breast cancer were uniformly treated based on their assay results”. Dr. Clifford Hudis from The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, offered a statement of his own agreeing with Dr. Sparano. “We will be able to compare the treatments for different stages of the disease and to identify approaches that are linked to improved outcomes in elderly patients with breast cancer”, said Dr Derks. [4].

“Our data include many types of chemotherapy, but we can not guarantee that all types of chemotherapy are safe”, Amant said. At the end of the study, less than two percent of the hormone-only group had the cancer spread and the survival rate was 98 percent overall. Because an MRI is more sensitive than a mammogram in picking up cancers, it is used for patients with a higher rate of getting breast cancer, she said.

The most common cancers diagnosed in the mothers in the study were breast and blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. The study proved that there is no need for chemo for women in low risk group.

“The findings of the TAILORx trial are compelling and consistent with the experience in my clinical practice”, said Nigel Bundred, Professor in Surgical Oncology, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. It should be noted, however, that the results for these groups are still pending, and that the research is still ongoing. The study involved nearly 324,000 U.S. women who had screening mammograms, most with computer assistance and a few without. Instead, hormonal therapy can lower the risk of cancer recurrence and increase survival chances, if the recurrence score is low.

The test typically costs about $4,000 and many insurance companies do cover it.

Computer-assisted scans did prove to be slightly better at detecting very early tumors called ductal carcinoma in situ or DCIS, but whether that is a benefit is debatable because these tumors are not invasive and a few experts think they should not even be considered true cancers. This study has classified women as low risk, intermediate or high risk by the performance level of the gene test. The new study assigned treatment based on the scores and tracks of test results.