Tag: Personalized breast cancer treatment
Alarming facts about breast cancer in India
With the increase in the number of breast cancer cases in India, the fear of cancer is on the rise. One cannot prevent breast cancer but can increase the survival rates by being informed and choosing the right treatment at the right time. Patients diagnosed with breast cancer need planned and systemic therapy, which is personalized based on their cancer condition.
Here are some alarming facts about breast cancer in India that will help patients understand breast cancer and the reason to opt for a personalized treatment:
• Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in India.
• Breast cancer is the most common cancer in most cities and the second most common in rural India.
• Breast cancer accounts for 25% to 32% of female cancers in all cities across India.
• In India, one woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every 4 minutes.
• One woman dies of breast cancer, every 13 minutes in India.
• An estimated 70,218 women died of breast cancer in India, in the year 2012, the highest in the world for that year.
• Only 60% of women who are treated for breast cancer, survive for at least five years post-treatment in India as compared to 89% in the US.
• The high mortality rate is due to the lack of awareness and delay in screening and diagnosis.
• More than 50% of breast cancer patients in India are suffering from stage 3 and 4, where the chances of survival are extremely low.
• India sees a spurt in the cases of breast cancer in the age group of 30 to 50, and the same is likely to increase.
• Breastfeeding often interrupts periods, which leads to fewer menstrual cycles and less estrogen exposure, leading to about a 4.3 percent reduction in the overall risk of breast cancer for every 12 months of breastfeeding.
• According to the National Institute of Health, breast cancer survivors are at an increased risk of osteoporosis. Estrogen has a protective effect on bones, and reduced estrogen levels can trigger bone loss.
Breast cancer cannot be prevented but it can surely be treated within time. Here are some things that all of us can do:
• Be aware and spread about breast cancer diagnosis, symptoms, breast cancer recurrence tests, and the right treatment.
• Learn about self-tests and regularly examine your breasts on your own.
• Visit an oncologist if you feel any abnormalities in your breasts.
• Early detection is a blessing. It means breast cancer can be treated, and you have the chance to live a healthy life post-recovery.
• Stage 1 and 2 breast cancer patients are eligible to take breast cancer recurrence prediction test namely CanAssist Breast to find out their recurrence risk score.
• Depending on the score, the doctor and patient can personalize their treatment.
Talk to more people and spread the word about breast cancer, treatments and medical tests like CanAssist Breast that can help in personalizing breast cancer treatment by letting the patient know their breast cancer recurrence risk score.
To know more about CanAssist Breast, please click here or drop us an email at info@oncostemdiagnostics.com
Chemotherapy Or No Chemotherapy – CanAssist Breast Helps You Decide
What comes to your mind when you think about breast cancer? It would most probably be ‘chemotherapy,’ ‘fear of a long process of treatment,’ ‘high costs,’ the fear of cancer coming back, and so on. These thoughts can be controlled with the right knowledge and right breast cancer treatments.
Researchers and oncologists have made new and promising forms of treatment for breast cancer. It’s time to personalize your treatment!
Our test classifies patients as ‘low-risk’ or ‘high-risk’ based on the patient’s breast cancer recurrence risks over five years. The clear-cut test result provides doctors with additional information that can be used for treatment planning.
Plan the ideal treatment
CanAssist Breast is a test that helps to plan the ideal treatment by predicting the breast cancer recurrence risk within five years of surgery. The risk of recurrence is lesser in early-stage breast cancer (Stage 1 and Stage 2), and hence, it is important for doctors and the patients to plan out a suitable course of treatment based on the breast cancer recurrence risk score.
Until a few years back, oncologists and clinicians were deciding cancer treatments based on age, tumor size, node status, grade, ER, PR and HER2 status. OncoStem realized there was a gap in the decision-making paradigm and understanding the tumor biology to comprehend the cancer progression and its aggressiveness would significantly change treatments depending on an individual’s tumor biology.
Tests similar to CanAssist Breast have been based on genomic analysis, whereas CanAssist Breast involves proteomics analysis. The genomics method considers genes of interest in the genome of a cell, whereas CanAssist Breast’s proteomics technique studies the proteins of interest produced by the cell. A 5-year study by OncoStem Diagnostics, recently published online, explains the detailed analysis and results that lead to the test, CanAssist Breast.
Your tumor is different, just like you are, as an individual.
Doctors and oncologists have to know as much possible about your tumor for optimal and ideal treatment.
A way forward – scientific, machine-learning precision
Artificial intelligence and machine learning is an emerging approach in the healthcare sector including the treatment of breast cancer. CanAssist Breast is the first such test developed in India, specifically for Indian patients. It determines the tumor’s biochemical fingerprint and assesses its aggressiveness. Assessing the tumor biology in detail, the test considers five key biomarkers that are involved in recurrence-related pathways in the cell. Based on this combined analysis performed by proteomics-based technology, the information is then assessed by a statistical algorithm that provides a score between 0 and 100 – whether the patient is at low-risk or high-risk for cancer recurrence. A ‘CAB risk score’ less than 15.5 indicates a low-risk. Depending on each patient’s unique CAB risk score, the doctors can thus plan an ideal treatment tailored to an individual’s patient.
A decision that doctors and patients must make:
‘Fear’ is the most shared and challenging emotion that cancer brings with it. However, fearful a patient might be; it is essential for the patients to know and consider that their treatment can be different from that of the other patients.
Knowing who is eligible for the CanAssist-Breast test can help both patients and doctors. ‘
The patients must meet the below criteria to take CanAssist Breast:
- Patients with early-stage, invasive breast cancer
- Patients with hormone receptor-positive (“ER+ and/or PR+”) and HER2- negative disease
- Lymph node-negative or up to 3 lymph node-positive
- Patients should not have gone through neo-adjuvant chemotherapy
In India alone, 150,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. Of these, around 50 percent fall in the early-stage breast cancer category and a majority of them are eligible for this test.
Take your decision together
If you or someone among your friends or family are going through breast cancer (early-stage), you must consider taking CanAssist Breast before starting the treatment. If you are an oncologist or a doctor, maybe your patients could avoid the unnecessary treatments and the side effects most usually associated with chemotherapy.
Doctors must suggest the test to their eligible patients and patients must ask their doctors about the test score and personalize their treatment accordingly.
Want to know more about CanAssist Breast? Get in touch with us.