Breast Cancer Test Determines Most Effective Treatment
By LabMedica International staff writers Posted on 14 May 2019 |
Image: EndoPredict is a second-generation breast cancer recurrence test for highly accurate assessment of 10-year risk of distant recurrence (Photo courtesy of Myriad Genetics).
For the clinical management of patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer, several clinico-pathological and molecular characteristics of the tumor have to be considered for prognosis and treatment decisions.
Over the last two decades several multigene tests have been developed to aid the selection of patients for whom adjuvant chemotherapy might be appropriate based on prognosis. All of these tests predict the likelihood of disease recurrence or progression, and some have shown to predict relative benefit from chemotherapy.
An international team of scientists working with the Queen Mary University of London (London UK) performed a combined analysis of three large clinical trials, including a total of 3,746 women, who received treatments including hormone therapy and chemotherapy. The investigators found that a multigene test called EndoPredict (Myriad Genetics, Cologne, Germany) is able to predict whether chemotherapy will work for an individual patient.
The study results showed that patients with a high EndoPredict test result, indicating a high risk of metastasis, who received chemotherapy in addition to hormonal therapy, had statistically better 10-year outcomes than those who only received hormonal therapy. The study was therefore able to show that EndoPredict is not only a prognostic test, but for the first time was able to demonstrate that EndoPredict also has predictive abilities with regards to chemotherapy.
With the added predictive benefit of EndoPredict demonstrated by this study, use of this test might become more commonly used to determine whether chemotherapy will effectively treat a patient, bringing enormous benefit to women diagnosed with breast cancer.
Ivana Sestak, PhD, a senior lecturer and lead author of the study, said, “Our new results give clinicians good quality data to inform specific treatment recommendations for women. Our data shows that using the EndoPredict test to assess the risk of metastasis can spare women unnecessary chemotherapy if the test results show that a woman is at low risk of recurrence by the test. The study published on April 30, 2019, in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.
Related Links:
Queen Mary University of London
Myriad Genetics
Over the last two decades several multigene tests have been developed to aid the selection of patients for whom adjuvant chemotherapy might be appropriate based on prognosis. All of these tests predict the likelihood of disease recurrence or progression, and some have shown to predict relative benefit from chemotherapy.
An international team of scientists working with the Queen Mary University of London (London UK) performed a combined analysis of three large clinical trials, including a total of 3,746 women, who received treatments including hormone therapy and chemotherapy. The investigators found that a multigene test called EndoPredict (Myriad Genetics, Cologne, Germany) is able to predict whether chemotherapy will work for an individual patient.
The study results showed that patients with a high EndoPredict test result, indicating a high risk of metastasis, who received chemotherapy in addition to hormonal therapy, had statistically better 10-year outcomes than those who only received hormonal therapy. The study was therefore able to show that EndoPredict is not only a prognostic test, but for the first time was able to demonstrate that EndoPredict also has predictive abilities with regards to chemotherapy.
With the added predictive benefit of EndoPredict demonstrated by this study, use of this test might become more commonly used to determine whether chemotherapy will effectively treat a patient, bringing enormous benefit to women diagnosed with breast cancer.
Ivana Sestak, PhD, a senior lecturer and lead author of the study, said, “Our new results give clinicians good quality data to inform specific treatment recommendations for women. Our data shows that using the EndoPredict test to assess the risk of metastasis can spare women unnecessary chemotherapy if the test results show that a woman is at low risk of recurrence by the test. The study published on April 30, 2019, in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.
Related Links:
Queen Mary University of London
Myriad Genetics
Latest Molecular Diagnostics News
- Urine Test to Revolutionize Lyme Disease Testing
- Simple Blood Test Could Enable First Quantitative Assessments for Future Cerebrovascular Disease
- New Genetic Testing Procedure Combined With Ultrasound Detects High Cardiovascular Risk
- Blood Samples Enhance B-Cell Lymphoma Diagnostics and Prognosis
- Blood Test Predicts Knee Osteoarthritis Eight Years Before Signs Appears On X-Rays
- Blood Test Accurately Predicts Lung Cancer Risk and Reduces Need for Scans
- Unique Autoantibody Signature to Help Diagnose Multiple Sclerosis Years before Symptom Onset
- Blood Test Could Detect HPV-Associated Cancers 10 Years before Clinical Diagnosis
- Low-Cost Point-Of-Care Diagnostic to Expand Access to STI Testing
- 18-Gene Urine Test for Prostate Cancer to Help Avoid Unnecessary Biopsies
- Urine-Based Test Detects Head and Neck Cancer
- Blood-Based Test Detects and Monitors Aggressive Small Cell Lung Cancer
- Blood-Based Machine Learning Assay Noninvasively Detects Ovarian Cancer
- Simple PCR Assay Accurately Differentiates Between Small Cell Lung Cancer Subtypes
- Revolutionary T-Cell Analysis Approach Enables Cancer Early Detection
- Single Genetic Test to Accelerate Diagnoses for Rare Developmental Disorders