Systemic metastasis-focused life science company MetaStat announced that a study of nearly 500 female breast cancer patients has demonstrated the value of the company’s MetaSite Breast test in predicting metastatic disease. Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Weill Cornell Medical College collaborated on the sponsored study.
MetaStat’s MetaSite Breast test is a mechanism-based assay that identifies the tumor microenvironment of metastasis (TMEM) and predicts the likelihood of whether a woman with breast cancer will develop a distant metastasis, including spread to the liver, lungs, bone, brain, and other organs. The assay identifies the microanatomic landmark where tumor cells invade the bloodstream through direct interaction with endothelial cells and macrophages. Largely occurring through the spread of the tumor via the bloodstream, distant metastasis to other organs causes 90 percent of deaths in women with breast cancer.
An earlier study based on 60 patients with early-stage breast cancer, which was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, showed that the MetaSite Score (a count of the number of TMEM structures) in the primary breast cancer was associated with increased risk of metastasis. The recently completed study of 481 women with breast cancer confirmed that the MetaSite Score was found to be associated with a statistically significant increased risk of distant metastasis. This relationship was found in the predefined subgroup of women with ER+Her2- breast cancer, a subtype that accounts for more than 60 percent of all breast cancers. Additionally, the study determined that the prognosis information provided by the MetaSite Score was independent of key clinicopathologic variables, like the number of lymph nodes to which the tumor had spread, the size of the primary tumor, and the ICH-4 score (which is a test that provides similar prognostic information to that of the Oncotype DX assay).
The study’s results have been submitted for publication and will be presented at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and other scientific meetings.
For more information, visit www.metastat.com
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