Breast Cancer Patients To Be Retested
Retesting of tissue samples in breast cancer patients is in the process to make sure they are on the right treatment for their disease.
Around 2,730 breast cancer patients that live in Quebec, with breast cancer are to be retested.
Health Minister Yves Bolduc stated that if the new results of the tests determine the treatment that the patients are currently on should be changed, the new treatment will have the same effect like it had been started 1 year ago.
This past June, medical experts by Bolduc stated that the results were true, but the samples need to be retested just to reassure the breast cancer patients.
The women that will be retested 162 live in Laval, 445 in Monteregie, and 1,033 in Montreal.
The retesting will not be done in Quebec, because of the laboratories work load already, but having them done in the United States or another province. That will also assure that the new results are impartial.
Breast cancer patients that are discovered to have a high number of HER2 genes of the cancer cells tend to be a more aggressive type of cancer and it will respond to the treatment of Herceptin.
The review that was done was the results of 9,463 tissue samples of patients that had been diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2008 and June of 2009.
It was explained by Bolduc that the 6,733 patients that will not be retested had their tissue sample results done by an outside lab.
