Prognostic Test Assesses Breast Tumor Aggressiveness

An antibody-based test offers clinicians and breast cancer patients a better assessment of the aggressiveness of newly diagnosed tumors.

Patients with breast cancer experience progression of the disease and respond to treatment in different ways, but prognostic and predictive tools are limited. The new test, Mammostrat, developed by Applied Genomics, Inc. (AGI, Huntsville, AL, USA), will allow patients and oncologists to make more informed decisions about how aggressive to be when selecting a treatment option for breast cancer patients. Currently, most early stage breast cancer patients receive standard care treatment--surgery to remove the tumor followed by hormone therapy to treat estrogen-responsive disease.

AGI took advantage of genomics-derived information, and instead of building diagnostic tools that require new and expensive technology, it translated this information into a simple antibody-based test. Because the test uses traditional, widely-distributed technology, it holds promise for patients who may not have access to more expensive, technology-intensive approaches.

The company used DNA chip data to produce the simple antibody-based test that predicts which breast cancer patients have a high risk of cancer recurrence in five years or less. When further validated, this test will provide physicians with a new option for personalizing medical treatment for women with breast cancer. Meanwhile, Douglas T. Ross, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues from AGI demonstrated that a panel of five antibodies was significantly better than traditional prognosticators in predicting outcome for estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer patients. Their findings were reported in the July 1, 2006, issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.



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