Breast cancer patients may be spared chemotherapy

Approximately 70 per cent of women with the most common form of early stage breast cancer may be spared the ‘agony of chemotherapy’ under a new ‘precision medicine’ approach.

Researchers estimate that more than 23,000 women in the UK are diagnosed with the particular form of the disease each year, but claim that less than a third of them would need chemotherapy if the findings were implemented. Doctors estimate that 3,000 women a year in the UK will no longer need chemotherapy because of this trial.

Published in the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the study looked at more than 10,000 women aged 18 to 75, each having oncotype DX, a type of biopsy that looks at the activity levels of 21 tumour genes, which are markers of how aggressive the cancer is.

Currently, women who get a low score on the test are told they do not need chemotherapy, those with a high score are told they definitely do. However, the majority of women get an intermediate result which leaves them unclear as to what to do.

Of the 10,273 women tested, 69 per cent had a score of 11-25, representing the intermediate range. Each was randomly assigned to receive either endocrine therapy alone, or a combination of endocrine and chemotherapy. Researchers concluded that, depending on age, women who received only endocrine therapy did not fare worse than those who were also treated with chemotherapy, meaning women aged over 50 with this type of cancer and a score of 0-25 do not need chemotherapy. Women younger than 50 with a score of 0-15 can also avoid the difficult treatment.

Breast Cancer Care’s Rachel Rawson said: "Every day, women with certain types of breast cancer face the terrible dilemma of whether or not to have the treatment, without hard facts about the benefit for them. This life-changing breakthrough is absolutely wonderful news as it could liberate thousands of women from the agony of chemotherapy."