Cancer

Breast cancer is usually treated the same for all the patients suffering from this: first there's the surgical intervention that removes the lump, a part of the breast or even the whole breast f the tumour is too big and it got into the neighbouring tissue. Then there's chemotherapy and radiation therapy that have the purpose of distroying any possible trace of cancer cell or tissue that might still be in the breast or already travelling in the system.

Well, even if the treatment is standard for all these people, the results can be quite different , as the human body responses in unexpected ways. Sometimes the success is total and the person lives a normal life after that (proving , of course, that the tumour was discovered in the incipient stage of the disease), but sometimes the cancer reappears after a period of time.

Scientists and doctors have studied the mechanisms that decide the recurrence of the cancer or not and they were able to find some genes that are responsible for this. It's about 21 genes that can be studied now in a few moments by using a test called Breast Cancer Oncotype DX that is able to tell you with a high degree of accuracy the risk of getting breast cancer recurrence in 10 years time after the surgery.

According to this degree of risk the doctors can tell if their patient will undergo chemotherapy or not. If the risk is really small there's no need for chemo, as it has a lot of bad side-effects. So in this case they will use only hormone therapy.

I must make a specification, thoug: this test is only recommended for a certain type of breast cancer patients: those who were tested negative for lymph nodes cancer and positive for estrogen receptor tumour or in early aggressive breast cancer. The tumour or tumours removed during surgery are studied and tested with this Breast Cancer Oncotype DX and it establishes the degree of risk of getting breast cancer recurrence for each patient. The values of this risk are situated between 0 and 100.

What is below 18 is considered a low risk, so chemotherapy is no longer necessary, those over 36 are considered as having a high risk , so are strongly recommended a systemic treatment like chemotherapy, and the ones between 18 and 36 are considered intermediate risk. It is still not very clear what this middle class will do (chemo or not) , but there are some case trials undergoing, so i guess we will find out soon enough about it.

Some people complained of the fact that the price of this test is a bit too high (about $4000). But considering the fact that chemotherapy, too, can be really expensive, as it may cost thousands of dollars every year for every patient, the oncologists and general practitioners who take care of the breast cancer patients might suggest them to take such a test for material purposes, too.

I think it's good to know what are your chances of getting breast cancer again, too, in order to know what to do for the near future and to keep your eyes wide open for any signs that the cancer reappeared and also to have regular checkups, mammograms and breast screening.