Breast cancer has always been a nightmare to both men and women around the world, but a mammaprint genetic test may be able to help us prevent it.
Despite the fact that experts and researchers have been experimenting endlessly to come up with a cure for cancer, there still aren't any definitive results that can back up their discoveries. Cancer is the most cruel and one of the deadliest diseases in the world, by undergoing a mammaprint genetic test - we may be able to prevent breast cancer before it strikes.
Normally, patients who are diagnosed with symptoms of breast cancer or early stages of it believe in surgery or chemotherapy. But according to the most recent studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the recurrence of breast cancer after being remove through surgery no longer need adjuvant therapy otherwise known as chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy is often seriously considered despite its enervating side effects such as hair loss, weakened immune system, nausea and lethargy. All these can be prevented once patients are willing to go through a mammaprint genetic test as early as possible.
What Is A Mammaprint Genetic Test and How Can It Prevent Breast Cancer?
MammaPrint Genetic Test is a genomic test that identifies whether the patient has a low or high possibility of recurrence without chemotherapy. The MammaPrint Genetic Test is able to measure it through testing gene activity in about 70 distinct features of a tumor. As soon as it is determined, doctors will have an idea of the patient's genetic risk.
GenomicHealth created a test almost similar and dubbed it as Oncotype DX. But after further research on the subject, this procedure is entirely different from the MammaPrint Genetic Test made by Agendia. The oncotype DX prognosticates the possibility of metastasis, while the MammaPrint Genetic Test pinpoints the patient who doesn't need chemotherapy after surgery.
A five-year clinical trial involving women with breast cancer went through the Mammaprint Genetic Test and they found that the overall survival was 1.5 percent better. This figure may not mean so much, but this is what convinced Dr. Harold Brunstein, an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, to switch from oncotype dx to mammaprint genetic test.
Patients afflicted with cancer may find a glimmer of hope from the mammaprint genetic test results, but keep in mind that optimism is still key to defeat the disease.
