New diagnostic tests may reduce number of women who receive chemotherapy

Irish scientists are working on a diagnostic test to measure the individual risk of cancer recurrence in women with early-stage invasive breast cancer which could significantly reduce the numbers sent forward for chemotherapy.

Prof William Gallagher, director of the first Irish Cancer Society Collaborative Cancer Research Centre, Breast-Predict, said approximately two thirds of women with early-stage breast cancer who are given chemotherapy do not need it but the existing test, Oncotype DX, is not precise enough to identify them definitively.

“We have a problem with over-treatment of early stage breast cancer. Two thirds of women given chemotherapy don’t need it, but they are given it to catch the one third that do. So we are giving sometimes toxic therapy to women who don’t need it,” said Prof Gallagher.