Extent of breast cancer key for predicting spread

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - After treatment for breast cancer, women are commonly classified as either being in remission or not, depending on whether cancer is still present. New research suggests, however, that in predicting whether the cancer will spread to distant body sites, it is important to determine not simply if there is cancer, but how much.

As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr. W. Fraser Symmans from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and associates assessed the amount of cancer present in 241 patients who had been treated with chemotherapy.

To do this, the researchers developed a scoring system called the residual cancer burden, or RCB, that quantified rather than classified the cancer.

Each unit of increase in the RCB score was associated with a 94 percent increase in the risk of cancer spreading to a distant body site.

The researchers believe that use of the RCB score will allow doctors to better predict which women will do worse after being treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer.

SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Oncology, October 1, 2007.