Thousands could be spared misery of chemo as new test predicts if disease will return
Experts say the test could reduce over-treatment using the toxic therapy by 46 per cent
A new test could spare thousands of breast cancer patients the misery of unnecessary chemotherapy, by predicting if their disease will return.
The pioneering test allows scientists to analyse the genetic make-up of tumours.
By screening for 70 different markers - all of which increase the risk of the disease spreading - the MammaPrint test can accurately identify those patients who could be spared the toxic treatment.
Chemotherapy uses anti-cancer drugs circulating in the bloodstream to destroy diseased cells in the body, by preventing their growth.
The toxic therapy fails to distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells and as such, side-effects include severe nausea, hair loss, ulcers, chest pain and bleeding.
Many women in the early stages of the disease are given the treatment after surgery or radiotherapy, as a preventative measure to minimise the risk of their tumour returning and spreading.
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Using the MammaPrint test, scientists found 46 per cent of patients' tumours were low risk and as such, they had an excellent chance of survival without undergoing the ordeal of chemotherapy.
Dr William Audeh, chief medical officer at Agendia, said the test could potentially spare patients from unnecessary chemotherapy.
"The toxicities and side effects of chemotherapy may outweigh the potentially small and non-statistically significant benefit of chemotherapy in women at high-risk based on clinical factors, but at low risk per MammaPrint," he said.
"Thus, physicians and breast cancer patients may on an individual basis decide to avoid it."
The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, came from a clinical trial involving 6,693 patients across 112 cancer centres in nine European countries over five years.
Dr Gabriel Hortobagyi, of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas and chair of the Agendia medical advisory board, said: “The reporting of these conclusive results of the trial will now give physicians increased confidence that in using MammaPrint, their treatment decisions will be based on the highest level of clinical evidence and will minimize the incidence of over- or under-treatment."
Professor Laura van't Veer of the University of California San Francisco, who helped design the test for Agendia, told The Telegraph: "Our ability to profile the gene expression of a tumour is transforming the way we characterise cancers and how we can more effectively treat patients."
She said it is already being used to help breast cancer patients safely avoid chemotherapy.
MammaPrint is currently approved for use by the Food and Drugs Administration in the US.
In the UK the test is only available privately, as the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) discusses the potential for making it available on the NHS.