A new study entitled “Chemosensitivity Predicted by BluePrint 80-Gene Functional Subtype and MammaPrint in the Prospective Neoadjuvant Breast Registry Symphony Trial (NBRST)“ and published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology, has found that Agendia’s BluePrint genomic test provides more accurate information about the molecular subtype of a specific breast cancer, compared to the use of conventional Immunohistochemistry-FISH pathology tests.
Furthermore, according to the observational study of 426 patients, the 80-gene BluePrint test reclassified 22% of tumors overall, more accurately identifying breast cancer subtypes than could be done with IHC-FISH testing.
The BluePrint test is performed together with another Agendia´s test, the 70-gene MammaPrint. While the latter classifies cancer risk in High Risk or Low Risk, for breast cancer recurrence, 80-gene BluePrint assay identifies the tumor molecular type.
Pat Whitworth M.D., a Nashville surgical oncologist and leading author of this study noted in a company’s press release,, “This genomic test gives us a better picture of which patients will and won’t respond to preoperative therapy and also helps suggest the best course for therapy. One implication of the study findings is that we will eventually end up evaluating and treating many breast cancer patients differently than we do now because we will rely on their molecular subtype rather than just IHC-FISH pathology results.”
Neil Barth MD, an oncologist and Agendia’s Chief Medical Officer added in the press release, “Physicians have for nearly 40 years looked to the predictive capabilities of pathology tests such as IHC and FISH to generate clinical decisions. But we have also recognized these pathology tests are not complete, as we have often seen discordance between what we were told by IHC-FISH and how the cancer actually behaved. This study is telling us that we now have a better tool to measure the dominant biological drivers of each individual breast cancer”.
Still an ongoing study, additional results will be presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress in a poster discussion. ESMO 2014 will be held Sept. 26-30 in Madrid.
The team more recent findings will be published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology October´s issue.