chemotherapy

By Molika Ashford

Approximately 85 percent of a 51-member panel at the St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference supported the use of Oncotype DX to help decide which patients should receive chemotherapy.

Although the studies presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium did not resolve questions about the role of CYP2D6 genotypes or myriad other factors contributing to variability in tamoxifen metabolism, an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic offered some recommendations as to the types of studies that will be necessary to fill knowledge gaps in the field.

Researchers from the Japan Breast Cancer Research Group found that Oncotype DX had "significant prognostic value" in identifying the risk of cancer recurrence in Japanese women with estrogen receptor-positive early-stage breast cancer.

The data, which were presented at this year's American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, represent initial findings from the company's in-house effort to knock down multiple genes simultaneously and a collaboration related to multi-drug resistance of cancer cells.