In a publication in the August 10 2006 issue of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, Agendia’s MammaPrint® 70 gene breast cancer prognosis test and three other multi gene tests are shown to be superior over conventional assessment of risk of future metastatic disease. This reinforces the reliability of multi-gene tests for breast cancer prognosis prediction. The authors conclude that, even though the multi gene tests have only minimal overlap in the genes used, they show a remarkable agreement in assigning patients to the same risk category. This is probably due to the fact that the different genes used track a common set of biological characteristics of the individual cancer, leading to a similar assessment of the risk of developing metastatic disease.
