Many Breast Cancer Patients Can Safely Skip Chemo, Large Trial Confirms
These results have the potential to reduce overtreatment of breast cancer—stopping patients’ unnecessary exposure to chemotherapy—in a large fraction of cases.
writer, health care advocate, physician
These results have the potential to reduce overtreatment of breast cancer—stopping patients’ unnecessary exposure to chemotherapy—in a large fraction of cases.
What’s at issue is the right of all cancer patients—regardless of wealth—to obtain high-quality information about their conditions.
Few doctors, even oncologists who subspecialize, can keep up with developments in the field.
Before choosing any treatment after genetic testing, hit the pause button. Ask questions. Get a second opinion.
It’s possible that tumor mutation burden (TMB) predicts if cancer―of any type―will respond to treatment with immune drugs, but this remains to be tested.
My worry for Grail is that a lot of people will get worked up upon finding genetic changes of unknown significance. Meanwhile, it might fail to detect cancer in people who really have it.
The potential to reduce overtreatment, in women with a low chance of recurrence for which chemo is unlikely to be of benefit, is huge.
Evaluation of circulating tumor cells enables monitoring of some cancers from blood samples. This form of liquid biopsy offers…
These biomarkers should link patients to optimal therapy (when such exists), and lead some to decline therapy that’s unlikely to help. The CDx field is moving forward rapidly in oncology..
Over time, the costs should drop, like for smartphone tech, what my Dad – a chemistry major and retired physician – called “magic.”
If overtreatment is the problem, the solution is not by avoidance of breast cancer detection, but by better education of physicians and patients.
If confirmed, this method of liquid biopsy would enable monitoring and genetic evaluation of pancreatic cancer from blood.
Getting checked, one way or another, has even been deemed cost-effective. The question for colorectal cancer, if you choose to be screened, is how: what’s the best method?
A low Oncotype DCIS score predicts a low chance that non-invasive breast cancer will recur. The study supports that many women with DCIS can safely forgo radiation.
With an ordinary blood sample, a device can monitor cancerous cells for spread or resistance to treatment.