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The researchers found that a genetic test can predict with certainty whether chemotherapy would be beneficial for patients with the most common type of bad cancer – the positive estrogen receptor, HER2 negative.
The test could help direct patients at high risk of metastasis to chemotherapy, while allowing low-risk patients to avoid treatment and its potential side effects.
About 85% of bad cancer patients are now diagnosed as estrogen receptor positive, which means that cancer develops in response to the hormone estrogen. Physicians who treat the majority of these women are increasingly using multigene tests to determine the prognosis and risk of metastasis for each patient, and offer advice on the most appropriate treatment.
The new study, published in the journal Research and treatment of bad cancer and conducted in the UK, Austria and Spain, revealed that a multigene test called EndoPredict, developed by Myriad Genetics, is able to predict whether chemotherapy will work for a given patient.
Researchers from Queen Mary University in London, the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Group and the Spanish Breast Cancer Research Group conducted a combined badysis of three large-scale clinical trials, including 3,746 women, who have received treatment including hormone therapy and chemotherapy.
The study results showed that patients with a high EndoPedict test result – indicating a high risk of metastasis – who had received chemotherapy in addition to hormone therapy had achieved statistically better results after 10 years. years compared with those who received only hormone treatment.
Clinical features such as tumor size, grade, and nodal involvement are used to determine prognosis and treatment. In cases where these clinical features do not indicate whether a woman is at high enough risk to receive chemotherapy, the researchers say that the EndoPredict test may confer additional prognostic and indirectly predictive value in terms of the benefit of chemotherapy.
Baroness Delyth Morgan, Executive Director of Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now, commented on this news: "These promising results offer the first indication that EndoPredict could also identify patients who will respond to chemotherapy, so higher risk of recurrence. Although the use of this test on the NHS is already recommended, it is interesting to note that it could have even greater potential to guide the decision about whether or not chemotherapy is needed.
"Chemotherapy remains the cornerstone of treatment, but with such difficult side effects, such as hair loss, fatigue, and possible infertility, it is important to avoid giving it to patients who will not see much of it. advantages. Genomic testing such as this one is therefore valuable in rebaduring patients and their physicians and ensuring peace of mind in decisions about chemotherapy, and in enabling patients to receive the most appropriate treatment for them. . "
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