New low-cost test could help to determine relapse in breast cancer patients

The large-scale POETIC trial run by the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden NHS Hospital (both London, UK) has recently shown that a low-cost test to determine response to hormone therapy in breast cancer patients can determine the likelihood of relapse. The trial, which has been published in Lancet Oncology, sought to learn whether giving breast cancer patients hormonal therapy – using either aromatase inhibitor, letrozole or anastrozole – 2 weeks prior to surgery helps to reduce the risk of relapse further down the line. They also explored whether the Ki67 protein could be a predictive biomarker for response...