HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - Cancers Can Vanish Without Treatment, but How?

gdpawel · 12-27-2009, 01:21 PM

Hopeful

I agree too that we cannot just count on any kind of cancer just going away until we have testing that can show us which ones will and which ones won't progress.

Have you heard of any of the assays of genetic expression in tumor tissue as a technique to determine prognosis in patients with breast cancer?

The genetic analysis of Oncotype DX predicts which women will have a greater chance of breast cancer recurrence. The test looks at 21 genes that influence the behavior of breast cancer cells.

MammaPrint looks at the expression of 70 genes linked to breast cancer with an accuracy level of 96.7% as determined by a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Mammostrat is validated utilizing five immunohistochemical biomarkers to classify patients into high, moderate, or low-risk categories for disease recurrence.

Until these tests, it had been difficult to pinpoint which women would benefit most from chemotherapy, and those which wouldn't. These tests enable the oncologist and breast cancer surgeon to more accurately determine who should be treated and who should not be treated with chemotherapy, but they cannot predict "chemo response."

Patients in the high-risk group, who would benefit from chemotherapy, could be pre-tested with a cell-based functional bio-marker to see what treatments have the best opportunity of being successful, and offers a better chance of tumor response resulting in survival, while those in the lower-risk groups can be spared the unnecessary toxicity, particularly associated with ineffective treatment.

There should be due consideration to looking at the advantage of molecular and cellular assay tests.

12-27-2009, 01:21 PM	#5
gdpawel Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 1,080	Re: Cancers Can Vanish Without Treatment, but How? Hopeful I agree too that we cannot just count on any kind of cancer just going away until we have testing that can show us which ones will and which ones won't progress. Have you heard of any of the assays of genetic expression in tumor tissue as a technique to determine prognosis in patients with breast cancer? The genetic analysis of Oncotype DX predicts which women will have a greater chance of breast cancer recurrence. The test looks at 21 genes that influence the behavior of breast cancer cells. MammaPrint looks at the expression of 70 genes linked to breast cancer with an accuracy level of 96.7% as determined by a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Mammostrat is validated utilizing five immunohistochemical biomarkers to classify patients into high, moderate, or low-risk categories for disease recurrence. Until these tests, it had been difficult to pinpoint which women would benefit most from chemotherapy, and those which wouldn't. These tests enable the oncologist and breast cancer surgeon to more accurately determine who should be treated and who should not be treated with chemotherapy, but they cannot predict "chemo response." Patients in the high-risk group, who would benefit from chemotherapy, could be pre-tested with a cell-based functional bio-marker to see what treatments have the best opportunity of being successful, and offers a better chance of tumor response resulting in survival, while those in the lower-risk groups can be spared the unnecessary toxicity, particularly associated with ineffective treatment. There should be due consideration to looking at the advantage of molecular and cellular assay tests.