Millennium discovers markers associated with chemotherapy response.(Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.)

2003 JAN 16 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MLNM) has announced results from a preliminary, prospective study seeking to identify novel genetic predictors of breast cancer patients' response to chemotherapy.

Findings from the study demonstrated that a 5-gene marker set predicted, with 81% accuracy, a complete response to treatment with neo-adjuvant Taxol (paclitaxel) injection plus 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide (FAC) chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced breast cancer. The results were announced at the 25th annual meeting of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Texas.

"This discovery is a significant first step towards a goal of personalizing the care we provide to our patients, potentially allowing for more effective care, and ultimately, significantly better outcomes," said Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the department of breast medical oncology, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, lead investigator of the study. "If the medical community could one day predict individual patient outcome, we could then tailor our therapeutic strategies accordingly, selectively administering chemotherapy regimens to patients who are most likely to benefit most from these drugs and sparing others from the toxicity."

"This is truly an exciting discovery since there are currently no universally accepted molecular predictors of response to cytotoxic chemotherapies for breast cancer," ...