Many with early breast cancer can skip chemo

Many women with early-stage breast cancer can skip chemotherapy without hurting their odds of beating the disease — good news from a major study that shows the value of a gene-activity test to gauge each patient’s risk.

The test accurately identified a group of women whose cancers are so likely to respond to hormone-blocking drugs that adding chemo would do little if any good while exposing them to side-effects and other health risks.

In the study, women who skipped chemo based on the test had less than a 1% chance of cancer recurring far away, such as the liver or lungs, within the next five years.