Most researches of cancer precision medicine are only confined to the patients that have been included in clinical tests. Few researches evaluate how doctors in daily life use biomarkers to recommend chemotherapy or decide the treatment scheme for the patients. Today, we will talk about a research published on the journal Cancer, which has disclosed how in daily life precision medicine improves the treatment of cancer.

Nowadays, precision medicine and gene sequencing are no longer fresh terms. However, they are still a common topic in academic and industrial conferences and are pursued by researchers and entrepreneurs. Last year, Obama, former president of the US, raised a concept of precision medicine. Nowadays, numerous papers and academic reports on precision medicine have been published, which keep growing.

Today, we will talk about a research published on the journal Cancer. The researchers have disclosed how in daily life precision medicine is used to improve the treatment of cancer and studies how tumor gene detection reduces excessive treatment and improve the curative effects to the greatest extent in the course of breast cancer treatment.

Most researches of cancer precision medicine are only confined to the patients that have been included in clinical tests. Few researches evaluate how doctors in daily life use biomarkers to recommend chemotherapy or decide the treatment scheme for the patients. In order to investigate this phenomenon, Dr. Christopher Friese and co-workers of School of Nursing of University of Michigan Ann Arbor investigated 3,880 breast cancer patients that received treatment from 2013 to 2014, which covered the states of Los Angeles, CA and Georgia.

A total of 1,527 early-stage breast cancer patients participated in the investigation, among whom 778 patients have received 21-gene recurrence score assay (RS). The method is mainly used to evaluate the risk of recurrence of the disease and evaluate the chemotherapy effect of breast cancer patients of positive receptors of estrogen.

According to the results, among the patients that have received RS, 47.2% of them were not suggested to receive a chemotherapy, and 40.6% of them were suggested to receive a chemotherapy. The scores of RS were closely related with the chemotherapy suggestion: Almost all patients with a high score were suggested to receive a chemotherapy, while most patients with a low risk are not suggested to receive a chemotherapy. Besides, most patients with a high score of RS have received a chemotherapy, while those with a low score have seldom received a chemotherapy. In the test and treatment, there was no substantial racial difference. Most patients were contented with the scores of RS and chemotherapy suggestions to a large extent.

The research finds that the suggestions of doctors and the final treatment decisions are highly connected with the results of gene testing, which indicates that gene testing can help the doctors determine which patients are most likely to benefit from chemotherapy, and which patients are not necessary to receive a chemotherapy.

Nowadays, gene testing has become increasingly popular. The research published on the journal Cancer also indicates that gene testing is quietly changing the medical treatment method of people. The benefits it has brought are increasingly known to the public. However, we should be clear about what is gene testing, what the results of gene testing mean, rather than follow the trend blindly.

He also points out, though most females are very satisfied with their treatment experience, only 60% of females can correctly remember their testing results. This means that though the express of precision medicine for breast cancer has pulled out, the pace of some people is still slow. The community of oncology needs to do a better job to explain the purpose for the female to receive these tests, how to interpret the results and what the results mean to the treatment of breast cancer. These issues need to be studied very carefully.