Agendia's MammaPrint(R) Predicts Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Bre...( HUNTINGTON BEACH California and AMSTE...),Health

HUNTINGTON BEACH, California and AMSTERDAM, December 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Agendia, a world leader in molecular cancer diagnostics, today announced MammaPrint(R)'s ability to predict response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer.

Dr. Laura van 't Veer, from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, presented the data at the 2008 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) during the session Molecular profiling for guiding therapeutic decisions. The study analyzed the association between the pathological complete response (pCR) rate and the results of the MammaPrint test.

"Physicians are increasingly supportive of MammaPrint in clinical practice because they believe it provides them with invaluable information for patient treatment planning. MammaPrint's ability to accurately determine high risk patient responsiveness to chemotherapy both confirm and speak to the confidence physicians express in this state-of-the-art genomic breast cancer test," commented Dr. Richard Bender, Chief Medical Officer of Agendia and a life-long practicing oncologist who made a career at the NCI, Kaiser Permanente and Quest Diagnostics.

Findings in the neoadjuvant setting support MammaPrint's predictive power for chemotherapy response, in addition to its previously demonstrated prognostic value for early stage disease. The achievement of pCR is a valuable indicator for long-term response in this clinical setting.

A consecutive series of 167 patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy for stage II or III breast cancer were analyzed to assess MammaPrint's potential predictive power. 20 percent of the 144 patients in the poor prognosis signature group achieved a pCR, whereas none of the patients with a good prognosis signature achieved a pCR. After a median follow-up of 25 months, 19 relapses were seen in the poor signature and none in the good signature group. These findings suggest tumors with a poor prognosi
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