There are 10 different types of breast cancer. If the particular type of cancer is identified, then treatments can be tailored and made to suit the individual, instead of patients enduring 'catch all' treatments that, while possibly proving effective (not always) against the cancer, may cause needless harm or prove unnecessarily difficult to endure.
If the specific type of cancer is identified and targetted, in the long run, the treatment will be more effective and possibly cost effective.
At the moment, identifying the different types of cancer can only be done by expensive and lengthy gene testing, however, with this new test, we are even closer, as Baroness Delyth Morgan, the Chief Executive of Breast Cancer Campaign says to the 'holy grail of personnalised medicine'.
Breast cancer pathology has already come a long way since the days of every patient enduring chemotherapy. My tumor was screened for in situ cancer and infiltrant cancer plus the HER2 status which means the tumor is hormone sensitive, leading to my taking Tamoxifen. If it wasn't hormone sensitive I'd be taking different drugs and would maybe need to have had chemotherapy.
Baroness Delyth Morgan says that the goal is to overcome breast cancer by 2050. Not sure if that will happen, but it would be truly great if it did. I read a statistic that 1000 women die of breast cancer every MONTH in UK. Each of those women are someone's mother, daughter, friend. Too many.
Anyway, read this and get the whole story. It would be a great stride for breast cancer patients and their survival rates if this test was made widely available.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-24732987
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