Doctors have used a genetic test to decide which patients may be able to skip chemotherapy after surgery for breast cancer. Now a study confirms that this test, called Oncotype DX, works well for a small group of patients. But a longer, follow-up study is needed to draw conclusions for a fuller range of patients with riskier tumors.
Oncotype DX analyzes 21 genes in the tumor to estimate a woman's risk of the cancer coming back after surgery.
For patients who fell into the test's low-risk category, 99 percent didn't develop metastatic breast cancer five years after surgery, even though they didn't have chemotherapy. The overall survival rate among this group was 98 percent."This is really great news for the patients we're treating" says Dr. Sharon Giordano
, an oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who wasn't involved in the study.
Oncotype DX is recommended by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and is considered the standard of care for a particular type of breast cancer, Giordano says.
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