Horacio Astudillo de la Vega, professor at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV) of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), mentioned that the use of customized genomic tests for cancer have changed of opinion of almost half of doctors when deciding to treat breast cancer patients with chemotherapy.
Genomic Assay is a type of test that uses a sample of the breast cancer tissue to analyze the activity of a group of genes, rather than just a single gene. Genes contain the recipes for the various proteins a cell needs to stay healthy and function normally. Knowing whether certain genes are present or absent, overly active or not active enough, can help doctors predict the risk of the breast cancer returning later. This can be helpful in making treatment decisions, such as whether or not chemotherapy should be part of the treatment plan.
“We are living in a post-genomic era where diseases like cancer have a greater relevance for the benefits that are being achieved in the early diagnosis of hereditary cancers, treatment and survival,” Astudillo de la Vega said.
In a press release, the specialist explained that this new stage of personalized medicine allows oncologists predicting which malignant tumors will respond better to each therapy, avoiding patient’s over-treatment, while reducing both costs and premature deaths.
He emphasized that when there are resources, but not used in the best way, health costs are increased because cancer drugs are administered in excess, without knowing whether they will be effective or not.
While targeted therapies act in specific cancer-associated molecules, most chemotherapies act in all cells without distinguishing between malignant or benign, he said.
Although such tests have demonstrated their effectiveness, the main factor limiting their use is the financial cost; despite they decrease unnecessary expenses while adding prognostic and predictive value.
The CINVESTAV’s expert mentioned as an example that the Oncotype DX test (one of the three most common genomic tests for breast cancer) allows to assess the patient’s risk in low, medium and high.
Chemotherapy can be avoided in low-risk patients. In the case of patients with high recurrence rate, the doctor can be sure that this therapy is appropriate and he is not over-treating the patient. The test also provides useful information when a patient resulted in medium risk, because it has been shown that in such cases there is a greater benefit from hormone therapy, he said.
Source: Notimex, Breastcancer.org
