“If they have them they had roughly four times the risk of either (the cancer) recurring or dying than those who don’t have the cells,” said Lucci.
For patients with a higher concentration of circulating tumor cells found in the blood – with three of the cells present – 31 percent of them died or relapsed during the study.
WebMD reports that the study might explain why about 25 percent of breast cancer patients who catch their cancer early with surgery will see it return.
Experts commenting on the study said the blood test may one day help personalize treatment for breast cancer patients.
“We are moving into a state where we’re looking at a person’s individual tumor and this is another way to do that, potentially leading to treatment,” Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told HealthDay.
In an accompanying editorial in the same journal, Dr. Justin Stebbing, a professor of cancer medicine and oncology, at Imperial College, London, U.K., welcomed the findings, but cautioned more research is needed to determine how it could help patients.
Stebbing wrote, “At present we are in a difficult situation where we have a reliable prognostic biomarker but restricted guidance on how this information should be used, and therefore, until the completion of further studies, we do not envisage patients being treated differently on the basis of these data.”
Study: Breast Cancer May Be Predicted By Blood Test was originally published on blackdoctor.org
