MPI's MammaPrint breast cancer test goes on market
Summary:
The Molecular Profiling Institute (MPI) of Scottsdale just put its new MammaPrint breast cancer test on the market. The test, which uses microarray diagnostic tools to read 70 genes in a patient's tumor and determine likelihood of metastasis, is the first of its kind to be available commercially.
Full Story:
The Molecular Profiling Institute (MPI) of Scottsdale just put its new MammaPrint breast cancer test on the market. The test, which uses microarray diagnostic tools to read 70 genes in a patient's tumor and determine likelihood of metastasis, is the first of its kind to be available commercially.
MPI describes the MammaPrint test, which costs $3,200, as the most accurate test to date for predicting a patient's 10-year survival rate and for matching a patient with the most effective therapy schedule to correspond with the tumor. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that nearly twice as many breast cancer patients receive chemotherapy as may need it, due to the type of tumors a patient develops. MPI hopes that the MammaPrint alerts high-risk patients of the best course of treatment and reduces such therapeutic inefficiencies by providing each patient with a reliable diagnosis customized to her own DNA.
"It's very exciting that we're finally getting research in the area of genomics applied on an individual patient basis," Dr. David Alberts told The Arizona Republic. Alberts is the director of the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson. According to the Republic, both the nonprofit Translational Genomics Research Institute and the International Genomics Consortium, which contributed to the development of the MammaPrint test and have licensing deals with MPI, stand to gain from sales of the new diagnostic.
For more information:
"Phoenix company's test aids breast cancer fight," The Arizona Republic, 04/26/05