(applause)
About one in eight women will develop
breast cancer over the course of their lifetime.
But a breakthrough study may help
women navigate this life changing diagnosis.
The study found that many women with early stage
breast cancer can avoid chemotherapy.
These findings, of course, could change
the treatment for as many as 70 000 women
per year here in the US.
Joining us now to discuss, via Skype, is breast surgeon,
our good friend, Dr. Kristi Funk.
(applause)
Dr. Funk
Kristi, how are ya?
Hey guys, I'm well.
Good to be here.
So glad to have you back on
and I know, in your profession,
you get so excited when new research comes out,
changes the way you treat women,
particularly when it's good news.
Tell us about this study and what it means.
Travis, we've been waiting twelve years
for this study to come out and it is groundbreaking.
So, as you mentioned in the opener,
70 000 women will avoid having
to endure chemotherapy as part of their cure
because we know their prognosis is so excellent
that chemotherapy can't make a great thing even better.
This is so life changing.
So the women that this applies to
is no small number.
50 percent of all invasive breast cancers worldwide
apply to these criteria.
And you need a cancer under five centimeters,
with lymph nodes negative, meaning they're clear of tumor,
estrogen driven and not driven by HER2.
So, of all of these women, you take those cancers
and you put them into this assay,
this gene analysis called Oncotype DX.
And what that does is it looks at a bunch of tumor markers
that are either good genes to express or bad genes,
and depending on your personal cancer's fingerprint,
it spits out the percent chance that your cancer
will come back again in 10 years or less
in a metastatic, life-threatening place,
like lung, liver, brain, bone.
If that number is high, then you should do chemo,
because that can make the high number lower.
If it's low, you know that you don't need chemo.
But we've known that since 2004.
What this study did is it took the 70% of women
that landed in the middle ground.
That was a ton, over 6700 women in this study,
were in the intermediate group.
Like, I don't know, maybe you should do chemo.
You probably should do chemo.
Well, they took that 6700 women, divided them in half.
Half got chemo, half didn't.
It's been nine years.
We now know that none of them will benefit from chemo,
except a small subset, women under 50
in the high end of that middle range.
So, 70 000 women a year
(applause)
Fantastic
So, Kristi, let's say one of our viewers
has a new breast cancer diagnosis.
How do they broach this conversation with their provider.
Like, how do you start out and where do you go
with this information.
So, when you're newly diagnosed,
you won't know a hundred percent if you meet these criteria
for the Oncotype DX because you don't have proof positive
evidence that your lymph nodes are clear or negative
until you have your surgery.
So, after your surgery, again if your cancer ends up
in the final analysis being under five centimeters,
driven by estrogen, not HER2,
and then, your nodes are clear,
ask your doctors, well can I do that new gene test
on the tumor to find out if I really need chemo
because you're telling me I do because I'm 42 years old
and I have three kids, which sounds like I should pull out
all the stops and do everything under the sun,
but if the genetics of my tumor
aren't going to respond to chemo,
and I already have a phenomenal survival rate,
wow, I don't need to like see what my head
looks like bald and being nauseated,
but more importantly, I don't want to be subject
to heart damage, nerve damage, leukemia down the road.
Chemo is no joke, let alone lost work,
sick days, child care issues.
It's a huge burden lifted from thousands of women
every single year in the world
Amazing
It's such great news
Well and it...
Game changer
It really gets back to the way treatment for cancer
is changing universally, Dr. Funk,
because it's personalization,
it's looking at you, the individual.
Which is so different that even ten, fifteen years ago.
So as a breast surgeon, for you,
this is such great information.
Because I've always felt so bad for women
when you've had to give the advice,
Well, you could or you couldn't,
cause, how, I don't even...
That's really difficult
I don't even, yeah, I don't even know how
you say, Oh, I don't, I don't want to or I do.
We're not sure or we have to err on the safe side,
you going to get chemo
What a tough, tough decision.
I'm so excited for this.
And I'm curious then so, if people don't need chemo,
what is their treatment regimen going to look like?
So, they already had their operation
and if they kept their breast,
they probably need radiation.
If they had a mastectomy, they probably don't.
If they didn't need the chemo,
they probably don't have criteria
for radiation after mastectomy.
But all of these women that we're talking about,
have to at least strongly consider
taking anti-estrogen therapy.
That's sort of part of the deal.
You do the anti-estrogen therapy
instead of the chemo and it works equally well.
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