We have covered Agendia‘s MammaPrint® DNA microarray test in a February 2007 post. The latest news is that this gene expression profiling test has shown its utility in identifying a subgroup of patients with a good clinical outcome in HER2+ early breast cancer. The identified subtype of patients has an approximate 90% ten year survival rate.
From the press release issued by Agendia:
Dr. Michael Knauer from the Netherlands Cancer Institute today announced data uncovering a substantial group of traditionally miscategorized low risk HER2+ patients. Agendia’s highly accurate breast cancer tumor recurrence test, MammaPrint(R), was used to differentiate between patients at high and low risk for recurrence.
HER2+ patients are commonly identified as high risk, yet MammaPrint was able to identify a low risk subgroup of HER2+ patients, who subsequently experienced a 10 year disease-free survival of close to 90 percent even in the absence of (neo)adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin(R)) and chemotherapy. Additionally, in a subgroup of highly endocrine responsive HER2/NEU positive patients, MammaPrint(R) low risk patients had no relapse.
The results were presented by Dr. Michael Knauer during the 2008 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). In the study population of 169 HER2+ patients MammaPrint(R) classified 16 percent of patients as having a good prognosis signature with a 10-year distant disease-free survival (DDFS) of 89 percent, compared to 84 percent of patients classified as having a poor prognosis signature with a DDFS of 64 percent.
MammaPrint(R)’s robustness is underscored by the 70 gene panel unique to the test and a resulting gene profile that covers all molecular pathways associated with breast cancer. HER2/NEU-overexpression is observed in 15-20 percent of invasive breast cancers and is widely considered to be a negative prognostic factor. As a result, current treatment guidelines classify all HER2-positive breast cancer patients at high risk of relapse, and recommend trastuzumab and chemotherapy.
MammaPrint(R) accurately identified a subgroup of patients with a good clinical outcome in HER2+ early breast cancer. These patients will be further studied in the ongoing MINDACT-trial (Microarray for Node-negative and 1-3 positive node Disease may Avoid ChemoTherapy) to determine the prospects of withholding chemotherapy and/or trastuzumab in HER2+, MammaPrint(R) low risk patients.
Product page: MammaPrint…
Press release: Agendia’s Breast Cancer Test MammaPrint(R) Identifies New Subset of Low Risk HER2+ Patients…
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