Agendia's MammaPrint shows significant agreement with other multi-gene breast cancer prognosis tests
In a publication in the New England Journal of medicine, Agendia's MammaPrint® 70 gene breast cancer prognosis test and three other multi gene tests are shown to be superior over conventional assessment of risk of future metastatic disease. This reinforces the reliability of multi-gene tests for breast cancer prognosis prediction. The authors conclude that, even though the multi gene tests have only minimal overlap in the genes used, they show a remarkable agreement in assigning patients to the same risk category. This is probably due to the fact that the different genes used track a common set of biological characteristics of the individual cancer, leading to a similar assessment of the risk of developing metastatic disease.
Dr. Charles Perou, senior author of the New England Journal of Medicine states in the publication that it is clear that these profiles provided significant additional information beyond that provided by grade (i.e. histological assessment of tumor aggressiveness). In a commentary in the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Joyce O'Shaughnessy comments that multi-gene tests will alter medical practice such that in the future 30- to 50% fewer patients with ER-positive breast cancer will receive adjuvant chemotherapy.
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