A recent breast cancer study will spare thousands of patients from undergoing unneeded chemotherapy.
The nine year long study, recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that adding chemo to surgery and hormone therapy made no difference in a group of women with an intermediate cancer risk score. Previous studies made it clear that the oncotype test can show whether or not low-risk patients need chemotherapy. The difference now is that the intermediate risk patients can take the same test and no longer have to gamble whether or not they will be safe with hormone pills, and risk leukemia.
"So that is great news because that was a huge group of women that may have elected to get chemo because we didn't know, that now don't have to go through those side effects and know that they have a very very good chance of survival," explained Jennifer Hatton, Medical Oncologist and Hematologist.
Dr. Hatton says that she thinks that Doctor Sparano's study will have an immediate impact on her own patients, saving them thousands of dollars, as well as the harsh side effects of chemo.
