Andrew D. Seidman, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, said the study “highlights the fact that despite hormone receptor positivity and HER2 negativity, many patients will have a high risk of recurrence despite receiving chemotherapy and appropriate endocrine therapy. This gene assay represents a biological tool that may be useful in the future in stratifying patients for clinical trials and in identifying candidates whose outcomes can be improved.”

This work extends the observation that the recurrence score has the unique prognostic power above and beyond standard prognostic factors,” he continued. “I am particularly struck by the fact that it provides unique information in the multivariate analysis. As such, it can determine which patients are well served by an anthracycline-based regimen and an antiestrogen, and conversely, can identify those remaining at high residual risk of relapse, for whom we need to find better treatments, perhaps by overcoming resistance to endocrine therapy.” ■

Disclosure: Dr. Seidman reported no potential conflicts of interest.