A clinical trial sponsored in part by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has put out new findings showing that women with early breast cancer may not benefit from traditional chemotherapy treatment. This is exciting news indeed and a huge win for women who wish to take a less aggressive and non-toxic approach!

The TAILORx Trial: What It Found  

The groundbreaking Trial Assigning Individualized Options for Treatment (Rx), or TAILORx trial, was originally designed to answer the question of whether allopathic hormone therapy alone would be sufficient for early-stage HR-positive, HER2-negative, and axillary lymph node-negative breast cancer as opposed to hormone therapy combined with chemotherapy. The trial worked with over 10,000 women in 6 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Peru.

In a nutshell, here was the result: for 70 percent of the women in the study, chemotherapy showed no benefit for the most common kinds of breast cancer. The trial also found that for women with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative, axillary lymph node-negative breast cancer, treatment that consisted of surgery followed by chemotherapy and hormone therapy was no more beneficial than treatment with hormone therapy alone.

“The rates of overall survival were also very similar in the two groups. At five years, the overall survival rate was 98.0 percent for those who received hormone therapy alone and 98.1 percent for those who received both therapies, and at nine years the respective overall survival rates were 93.9 percent and 93.8 percent,” a press release for the National Institutes for Health said.

To achieve its findings, the trial utilized the Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score, a molecular test that uses 21-gene expressions of associated cancer occurrance.

“Until now, we’ve been able to recommend treatment for women with these cancers at high and low risk of recurrence, but women at intermediate risk have been uncertain about the appropriate strategy to take,” said Jeffrey Abrams, M.D., associate director of NCI’s Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program. “These findings, showing no benefit from receiving chemotherapy plus hormone therapy for most patients in this intermediate-risk group, will go a long way to support oncologists and patients in decisions about the best course of treatment.”

What the Trial Means for Women

This first-of-its-kind study has profound significance for women with breast cancer, as well as for women in general. The findings, which were sponsored by the NCI (a part of the National Institutes of Health) were spearheaded by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group and were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting on June 3, 2018. The study’s report will be published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Once published and advertised wisely, the findings will help inform the treatment decisions for women worldwide with breast cancer. It will also be a point of education for doctors. It will allow them to offer less-invasive and risky options to their patients.

“The new results from TAILORx give clinicians high-quality data to inform personalized treatment

recommendations for women,” said lead author Joseph A. Sparano, M.D., vice chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group and associate director for clinical research at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center in New York City.

There will be much discussion about the TAILORx trial in the months to come. It is the first trial of its kind to prove that chemotherapy is not needed for most early-stage breast cancers. As such, it will no doubt become a focal point of education for individuals concerned about breast cancer in general. It will also help women expand their thinking about their scope of available options. The main take-away for anyone interested in more gentle, non-invasive modalities for healing breast cancer is that it provides evidence which proves there is no need to rush into the devastating effects of chemo! This is indeed great news!

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers (“Dr V”) is the founder of Breast Cancer Conqueror.com and The 7 Essentials System®. This step-by-step guide empowers you with knowledge so you Never Have to Fear Breast Cancer Again! To watch a FREE webinar about the 7 steps for beating breast cancer naturally, Click Here.