Test predicts cancer survival rate

A NEW test based on techniques used in mapping crime can predict the survival chances of women with breast cancer.

It analyses images of ‘hotspots’ where the immune system is attacking the tumour. Tracking how strongly the immune cells are working helps predict a woman’s chances of keeping the disease under control and how best she can be treated.

So far the test is being trialled only on women with a type of breast cancer called oestrogen receptor negative, which affects up to one in three breast cancer patients and is particularly hard to treat.

Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research in London analysed tumour samples from 245 women. Those with a high number of immune hotspots lived an average of 91 months before their cancer spread, compared with only 64 months for those with a low number of hotspots, the journal Modern Pathology reports.

Team leader Dr Yinyin Yuan said: ‘We have shown that to measure the strength of an immune response to a cancer, we need to assess not just how many immune cells there are, but whether these are clustered together into cancer-busting hotspots.’

Institute chief executive Professor Paul Workman said: ‘We believe this new way of measuring immune reaction could be used to tailor treatment more effectively to individual patients.’