[Part Three of “Genetic Gamble: New Approaches to Fighting Cancer.”] A genetic test for people with eye melanomas reveals whether patients are likely to live or die with “uncanny precision”:
“The test identifies one of two gene patterns in eye melanomas. Almost everyone in Class 1 — roughly half of patients — is cured when the tumor is removed. As for those in Class 2, 70 to 80 percent will die within five years. Their cancers will re-emerge as growths in the liver. For them, there is no cure and no way to slow the disease.”
“No test has ever been so accurate in predicting cancer outcomes, researchers said.”
“The data from studies of the test are “unbelievably impressive,” said Dr. Michael Birrer, an ovarian cancer specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. ‘I would die to have something like that in ovarian cancer.’”
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