Your Eligibility - Agendia | Decoding Cancer

Your Eligibility

In order to be eligible for a MammaPrint test, you should:

Be under 61 years of age
Have had a tumor of < 5.0 cm
Have had your tumor defined as lymph node negative
Have had your cancer classified as Stage* I, Stage 2 or Stage 3a, with ER+ or ER-

Unfortunately, tumors in stage 3 (larger than 5 cm at the greatest dimension) or stage 4 (growing into the chest wall or skin) are outside the scope of the MammaPrint service.

If you meet these criteria, we recommend that you discuss with your physician the possibility of utilizing the MammaPrint service to determine your risk of tumor recurrence.

It should be noted that MammaPrint is not to be used as a stand-alone predictive test in order to determine response to chemotherapy, patient treatment or to predict the outcome of disease. Results from MammaPrint are used as a complement to other clinical data in order to help your physician decide on the most appropriate course of treatment for you personally.

Stage*

Breast cancers are classified according to the size of tumor, whether the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, and whether the cancer has spread to other sites in the body (metastasis).

Doctors often use the TNM system for staging: Tumor, Node, Metastasis. For example:

Size: T1 = a very small tumor, whereas T4 = a locally advanced tumor

Lymph node status: N0 = no lymph nodes involved, whereas N3 = 3 lymph nodes with cancer identified

Metastasis: M0 = no metastases, whereas M2 = two metastases detected

Tumors are also classified according to the presence or absence of estrogen receptors (ER) Estrogens are hormones that can attach to this receptor. The term "ER positive (ER+)" means that a woman's cells are sensitive to estrogen hormone. This gives an indication as to whether or not the tumor will respond to anti-estrogenic therapeutic drugs.