Ask the Expert: Is It Possible to Skip Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer Treatment?

In In The News by Barbara Jacoby

From: healthline.com

Not all people with breast cancer will need chemotherapy. But doctors may recommend it for certain situations, such as before surgery to shrink a tumor and after surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells.

Which initial treatments are more commonly being used in place of chemotherapy?

In ER-positive breast cancer, if the Oncotype DX is in the range where there isn’t a chemotherapy benefit, anti-estrogen medications will be used to reduce the risk of recurrence. These medications include aromatase inhibitors Trusted Sourceand tamoxifen.

Is it possible to skip chemotherapy in treating other cancers?

Every type of cancer is different, and the indications for chemotherapy vary widely among different types of cancers.

With the evidence available now, is minimizing overtreatment worth the risk of minimizing the benefit of chemotherapy as a whole?

It’s so important to give a person every opportunity to avoid developing stage 4 breast cancer, so the benefit of chemotherapy should not be overlooked.

However, the emergence of precision medication using a genomic profile like the Oncotype DX or a Mammaprint test can tell us who truly does benefit from chemotherapy, making over-treatment less of a concern moving forward.

What can people expect from future research on this topic?

In the future, there will likely be an expansion of the use of genomic profiling to fully understand the risk of recurrence and the benefits of various therapies. We may begin to see this profiling used for more advanced early breast cancer, such as stage 3.

Which initial treatments are more commonly being used in place of chemotherapy?

In ER-positive breast cancer, if the Oncotype DX is in the range where there isn’t a chemotherapy benefit, anti-estrogen medications will be used to reduce the risk of recurrence. These medications include aromatase inhibitors Trusted Sourceand tamoxifen.

Is it possible to skip chemotherapy in treating other cancers?

Every type of cancer is different, and the indications for chemotherapy vary widely among different types of cancers.


With the evidence available now, is minimizing overtreatment worth the risk of minimizing the benefit of chemotherapy as a whole?

It’s so important to give a person every opportunity to avoid developing stage 4 breast cancer, so the benefit of chemotherapy should not be overlooked.

However, the emergence of precision medication using a genomic profile like the Oncotype DX or a Mammaprint test can tell us who truly does benefit from chemotherapy, making over-treatment less of a concern moving forward.

What can people expect from future research on this topic?

In the future, there will likely be an expansion of the use of genomic profiling to fully understand the risk of recurrence and the benefits of various therapies. We may begin to see this profiling used for more advanced early breast cancer, such as stage 3.