Medical researchers often work for decades to achieve a small step toward treating or curing disease. So when a major breakthrough was announced recently – finding that many women with breast cancer do not need chemotherapy -- it was a reason to celebrate.

The news is especially good for women over 50. An article in the New York Times reported: “…researchers concluded that chemo can be avoided in all women older than 50 with hormone-receptor positive, HER2-negative, node-negative breast cancer and a score of up to 25 on a gene test, which accounts for about 85 percent of women with breast cancer in that age group.”

The study began in 2006 and eventually included 10,253 women ages 18 to 75 who had breast cancer.  These women were given a gene test performed on tumor samples after surgery. The test is generally done for early-stage disease to help determine if chemo is needed. Scores range from 1 to 100. Typically, chemo was not recommended for scores under 11 and was recommended for scores over 25, but there was no definitive opinion on chemo for women in the in between those scores.

Following this study, approximately 60,000 women may be affected, helping them avoid the possible side effects of chemotherapy, including hair loss and nausea, as well as very serious consequences such as heart and nerve damage, a higher risk of infection and increased odds of developing leukemia later.

Our hats off to the baby boomers and other researchers who didn’t give up.