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. “We didn’t find any difference in cardiac functioning or cognitive function between children exposed to cancer treatment in utero and the control group”, said Dr Frederic Amant, the lead author of the study and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.
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Only certain patients are eligible for the test at this point, and more studies need to be done, but Dr. Nagpal says this is very good news overall in the fight against breast cancer.
“TAILORx is a unique, large breast cancer trial that provides us with information no other trial to date has offered”, said Kathleen Pritchard, MD, senior scientist, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
A gene-activity test conducted by the National Cancer Institute identified a group of early-stage breast cancer patients who did not greatly benefit from chemo, The Associated Press reports.
The study was published earlier today, September 28, 2015, in the New England Journal of Medicine.
While the combination of hormone therapy drugs and chemotherapy has helped reduce breast-cancer mortality rates by approximately 33 percent over the past 25 years, research suggests that chemo only extends about five percent of lives.
Women participating in the study who took the test and then skipped chemotherapy had less than a 1% chance of cancer recurring in their liver or lungs even 5 years later. The test that measures these factors to determine whether women are low-risk, high-risk, or somewhere in between-called Oncotype DX-has been on the market since 2004.
Pregnant women battling cancer “do not need a termination and can start treatment immediately without worrying unduly about the effects of drugs or radiation on their unborn babies”, Reuters reported. Follow-ups with these study participants are still ongoing to gauge the rates of cancer recurrence. However, independent monitors did ask the researchers to make the results of the low risk group available. “There is no chance that for these patients, that chemotherapy would have any benefit”.
About Oncotype DXThe Oncotype DX portfolio of breast, colon and prostate cancer tests applies advanced genomic science to reveal the unique biology of a tumor in order to optimize cancer treatment decisions.
Of all the women in the study, 15.9 percent – or 1,626 – had scored between 0 and 10, so they were administered only tamoxifen and no chemotherapy.
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The test typically costs about four-thousand dollars and many insurance companies cover it.
