Researchers have found that many women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer may be able to forgo adding chemotherapy to a regimen of hormone-blocking meds, without hurting their chances of beating the dreaded disease thanks to gene testing.
The clinical trial enrolled 10,253 women, including 41 at Loyola, who had a certain type of breast cancer (hormone-receptor positive, HER2 negative) that had not spread to lymph nodes.
A study shows that many women suffering from breast cancer may skip chemotherapy.
Normally, doctors would treat this type of breast cancer with surgery and hormone-blocking treatments, but they might also prescribe chemotherapy in case any cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body. “Chemotherapy is more likely to harm these patients than to help them”. Most of these women do not need chemo, but up until now physicians have been unable to tell which women can avoid it.
The study assessed the effectiveness of a genetic test called Oncotype DX, created by Genomic Health, Inc.
Oncotype DX works because it measures the activity of the genes in charge of controlling cell growth, as well as the activity of the genes in charge of indicating how probable or improbable a patient is to respond well to hormone therapy.
In the studies, women who skipped chemo based on the test had less than a one percent chance of cancer recurring far away, such as the liver or lungs, within the next five years. Dr. Clifford Hudis from The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, offered a statement of his own agreeing with Dr. Sparano. About 16 percent of the women scored low on the test and thus, received only anti-hormone therapy, no chemotherapy. Results on these groups are not yet ready – the study is continuing. The five-year overall patient survival was 98 percent. We believe that this reflects the efficacy of Oncotype DX in enabling patients to avoid unnecessary chemotherapy treatment. Interestingly, TAILORx is the first clinical study that evaluated a multigene expression assay like Oncotype DX wherein early stage breast cancer patients were treated according to individual risk levels.
“Dr. Karen Beckerman, a New York City obstetrician diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, said she was advised to have chemo but feared complications”. The risk of developing a second primary cancer was about three-fold greater than having a recurrence of the original breast cancer, but we wouldn’t expect chemotherapy to prevent these cancers from developing.
“I was convinced that there was no indication for chemotherapy”.
“I think it’s a great addition to quality of life and also to value, because we don’t need to give extra care to folks who have an excellent prognosis and wouldn’t benefit from the additional treatment in any event”, Mertens said.
“The test costs $4,175, which Medicare and many insurers cover”. The company is applying its world-class scientific and commercial expertise and infrastructure to lead the translation of massive amounts of genomic data into clinically-actionable results for treatment planning throughout the cancer patient’s journey, from diagnosis to treatment selection and monitoring.
The study involved almost 324,000 women who had digital mammograms from 2003 to 2009.