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Future of breast cancer research?

Page last modified on: November 20, 2008
Question from JS: Considering the updates from this year's conference, what might we hope to see announced next year? Or in five years?
Answers —Generosa Grana, M.D., F.A.C.P.: I'm not so hopeful we will have exciting things next year, because it will take a while for this to percolate, but the next five years will be fruitful in showing us new ways to treat a woman with early-stage breast cancer. We will move beyond tumor size or HER2-positive to this gene-array-based technology. These technologies depend on sampling a tiny area of the tumor and testing that tumor for expression of anywhere from 30 to 70 genes and their specific pattern in that cancer. That is the whole technology behind Oncotype DX testing and a similar test called the Amsterdam-4.

So five years from now we may be using different tools to assess risk. I'm hopeful that five years from now we will be doing much more in the way of targeted therapy where we will choose drugs such as Herceptin, Avastin, lapatinib, and others that will target specific pathways in the cancer cell rather than randomly attacking cells in a non-specific way, which is what chemotherapy traditionally does.
Marisa Weiss, M.D., president and founder: Many of these new types of medicine will help the woman who has hormone-receptor-negative disease.
Generosa Grana, M.D., F.A.C.P.: The Amsterdam-4 is much like the Oncotype DX, but it looks at 72 genes and their expression in the tumor and it labels the cancer "good risk" and "poor risk," much as Oncotype does. Currently Oncotype is useful in the woman who is hormone-receptor-positive and lymph-node-negative.

We need tools like Oncotype that will be of use in all patients, hormone-receptor-negative and positive, lymph-node-negative and positive. These tests might be able to help us determine, first of all, what the woman's prognosis is from her cancer; secondly who needs chemotherapy and who needs hormone therapy and who needs both; and ideally, who might benefit from a particular type of chemotherapy so that we could target our drugs better.

In addition to targeting the tumor and finding more effective less toxic drugs, it would be ideal to also have better ways of managing the toxicities of our treatment.

On Wednesday, December 21, 2005, our Ask-the-Expert Online Conference was called Updates from San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2005. Generosa Grana, M.D., F.A.C.P. and moderator Marisa Weiss, M.D. brought you the highlights of the 2005 Breast Cancer Symposium and answered your questions about the latest diagnostic and treatment options for breast cancer.

The materials presented in these conferences do not necessarily reflect the views of breastcancer.org. A qualified healthcare professional should be consulted before using any therapeutic product or regimen discussed. All readers should verify all information and data before employing any therapies described here.

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Meet the Experts

Generosa Grana, M.D., F.A.C.PGenerosa Grana, M.D., F.A.C.P. is the director of the Cooper Cancer Institute and heads the division of hematology/medical oncology at Cooper University Hospital.

Marisa Weiss, M.D. is a radiation oncologist specializing in breast cancer and the founder, president, and guiding force behind Breastcancer.org.

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