A test that measures the amounts of two members of the same protein family - one of which appears to act as an oncogene, and the other as a tumor suppressor - helps identify patients with breast cancer who will likely benefit from chemotherapy and those who won’t, according to researchers.

OncoPlan, a test is already commercially available, and it has been shown to predict the aggressiveness of tumors and disease recurrence after surgery in breast, colon and stomach cancers. Now researchers believe that it may help predict as to which breast cancer patients would benefit most from chemotherapy.

A study was presented at the first meeting on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development; researchers looked at the two forms of protein measured by OncoPlan in 2,380 women with breast cancer. Out of these 717 had undergone chemotherapy.

They found that the women who had low levels of one of the proteins and did not receive chemotherapy had very poor outcomes. The same women who did receive chemotherapy, however, had a twofold reduced risk of relapsing and dying from their disease. The women who had high levels of the protein were much more likely to survive their disease, and appeared to derive no additional benefit from chemotherapy. However, more research is needed to clarify the ability of OncoPlan in predicting outcomes of chemotherapy.

A. Raymond Frackelton Jr., an associate professor at Brown University and vice president of Research at Catalyst Oncology (the company marketing OncoPlan), said

“But even at this point, the results are very exciting because, with further validation in clinical trials, OncoPlan, which is already being used to predict disease aggressiveness, will help to ensure that individual patients receive the most beneficial therapies”

Under a new proposed law, sixth grade girls of Michigan State are required to be vaccinated against cervical cancer. The proposed law would require girls headed for sixth grade next year to be immunized against the human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes most cervical cancers and can also cause genital warts.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 9,700 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer this year, and that more than a third of those cases will be fatal. Cervical cancer is second only to breast cancer in the number of diagnoses made every year. The vaccine, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in June, was shown to be 100 percent effective against HPV.

Doctors say it works best if administered before girls are sexually active.