Genetic test shows more breast cancer patients can skip chemo

TAMPA: As many as 70 per cent of women with the most common form of breast cancer may be able to skip chemotherapy, based on their score on a genetic test, researchers said yesterday.

Until now, women have faced a great deal of uncertainty about whether to add che mo to hormone therapy after a diagnosis with hormone-receptor positive, HER-2 negative breast cancer at an early stage before it has spread to the lymph nodes.

“With results of this groundbreaking study, we now can safely avoid chemotherapy in about 70 percent of patients who are diagnosed with the most common form of breast cancer. For countless women and their doctors, the days of uncertainty are over,” said co-author Kathy Albain, an oncologist at Loyola Medicine.

A 21-gene test called Oncotype Dx that has been around for years has helped guide some decisions. A high recurrence score, above 25, means chemo is necessary to ward off a recurrence while a low score, below 10, means it is not.

The current study involved more than 10,000 women and focused on those whose scores were in the middle range, from 11 to 25.

Patients, aged 18 to 75, were randomly assigned to receive chemotherapy followed by hormonal therapy or hormone therapy alone. Then, researchers studied the outcomes, including whether or not cancer recurred, and overall survival.

“For the entire study population with gene test scores between 11 and 25 – and especially among women aged 50 to 75 – there was no significant difference between the chemotherapy and no chemotherapy groups,” said the findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. — AFP