What are the benefits of Oncotype DX testing?
Oncotype DX testing, just like other prognostic tests, can help your doctor determine how your cancer will behave and whether the benefits of chemotherapy or radiation therapy outweigh the side effects and costs. Your test score can be interpreted with other markers such as your age and tumor grade and size.
Studies have shown that Oncotype DX testing can change the decision to administer chemotherapy in as many as 30 percent of doctors treating people with ER-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer.
Oncotype DX testing may be most important for people with medium-risk cancer, where it’s unclear if chemotherapy [4] or radiation therapy [5] would elevate the chances of survival.
In the large TAILOR clinical trial, researchers compared the benefit of chemotherapy guided by gene testing in a group of 9,719 women with ER-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer. In women over age 50 with medium Oncotype DX scores, the researchers found no distinct difference in overall survival between women who:
- received hormone therapy [6] alone
- received hormone therapy and chemotherapy together
The researchers discovered some benefits of adding chemotherapy to treatment in women under age 50 with a medium score.