Thousands of women diagnosed with breast cancer each year could soon avoid unnecessary chemotherapy thanks to a newly approved genetic test.
Currently, patients with breast cancer that may have spread to other places will have surgery to remove the tumors and then receive chemotherapy to reduce the chances of them coming back.
However, the risk of this happening for most is low, meaning many women receive unnecessary chemotherapy, which often comes with exhausting side effects such as fatigue and nausea.
The new test, known as Oncotype DX, can analyze tumor tissue and, by looking for genes associated with an aggressive cancer, can conclude how likely it is to come back.
Many women receive unnecessary chemotherapy, which often leads to exhausting side effects such as fatigue and nausea (file image)
About four in five patients will have surgery to remove the cancer or the entire breast (file image)
The test could benefit patients with breast cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes, most of whom are offered chemotherapy for fear that it has spread to other organs.
Studies show that the device, which costs around £2,000 per test, can identify 85 per cent of this group of patients whose cancer is unlikely to return, saving them from chemotherapy.
Now the NHS spending watchdog has announced that most postmenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer, which has also spread to the lymph nodes, will be able to be tested.
The decision is expected to benefit more than 3,000 women each year. Around 55,000 women and 400 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK, but advances in treatment over the last decade mean almost nine in ten are still alive five years after being diagnosed.
Breast cancer accounts for about 30 percent of all new female cancers per year (file image)
About four out of five patients will have surgery to remove the cancer or the entire breast.
The Oncotype DX test involves taking a sample of the breast tumor during surgery to remove the cancer.
It is then sent to a laboratory in the US, where it is analyzed for 21 different genes that predict when the cancer will return. If fewer than 16 of these genes are present, the patient will be informed that they probably do not need chemotherapy. If 16 or more are found, then chemotherapy is probably needed.
“Currently it is difficult to know who will benefit from chemotherapy, so we give it to most patients as a precautionary measure,” says Professor Simon Holt, a surgical oncologist at Swansea University. ‘The Oncotype DX test allows us to precisely select the patients who most need treatment. “It also gives confidence to the rest of the patients that the cancer is not going to come back.”
