Breast Cancer
Breast
Cancer
According to the American Cancer Society, in 2018 an estimated 266,120 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed among women and 2,550 cases will be diagnosed in men. Many of these patients will be treated with some form of chemotherapy.
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At Nagourney Cancer Institute, we know that selecting the right therapy can mean the difference between life and death.
Different
Types
Breast cancer is a malignant tumor that is formed from the cells of the breast, primarily in the ducts or lobules. The most common forms of this cancer are:
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Ductal carcinoma in situ is a non-invasive form of cancer in which the cancerous cells do not penetrate the lining of the mammary ducts.
Lobular carcinoma in situ is another non-invasive form of cancer arising in the breast lobules that does not penetrate the basement membrane.
Invasive ductal carcinoma is the most common invasive type. This cancer starts in a duct and spreads to the breast tissue where it may more easily spread to lymph nodes and other parts of the body.
Invasive lobular carcinoma is also an invasive type of breast cancer, which starts in a lobule and then spreads to lymph nodes and other parts of the body.
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The team here at Nagourney Cancer Institute has many years of experience conducting laboratory assays on the invasive forms of breast cancers.
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The laboratory test, known as a "functional profile," enables us to identify those drugs and combinations most likely to kill your cancer.
Treatment
Options
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Most medical oncologists base their treatment strategy on standard chemotherapy protocols for specific types of cancer.
For breast cancer patients there are many established drug combinations.
These include CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, fluorouracil), CAF (cyclophosphamide, Adriamycin, fluorouracil), CA (cyclophosphamide plus Adriamycin), Taxol (paclitaxel), Taxotere (docetaxel), Xeloda (capecitabine), Navelbine (vinorelbine), Gemzar (gemcitabine), and Paraplatin (carboplatin).
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For HER2 positive (abbreviation for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) patients, Herceptin (traztuzumab) and Tykerb (lapatinib) are used as well. These treatments have been developed over years of clinical trials, by assigning patients to different drugs and following their progress to determine the best combination. While some progress has been made, there is no single best treatment for every breast cancer.
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The fact that at diagnosis all patients with breast cancer have an equal likelihood of response to any given therapy does not mean they will respond equally well.
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As can be seen from the list above, physicians have many treatment options to choose from.
This is why we use functional profiling to select the treatment that is most active for you.
The results on the graph below, published in an article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, reveal a statistically significant correlation between drug sensitivity and time to progression.
