Chemo for Breast Cancer? Better Read This…

They say there are two guarantees in life: death and taxes.

And I’d add another one to the list: If you get diagnosed with cancer, I guarantee your doctor will tell you to get chemotherapy.

Better safe than sorry, right?

Wrong. 

A new study on chemotherapy and breast cancer is about to turn the entire cancer treatment industry on its head.

And it’s about time.

A major study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 7 out of 10 women diagnosed with a certain kind of breast cancer don’t need chemotherapy after all.

That’s right—a full 70% of women with early stage breast cancer gain ZERO benefit from this horrendous treatment.

The study evaluated over 10,000 women with breast cancer. All women underwent surgery and then received endocrine therapy (a drug like tamoxifen that blocks estrogen). After that, some received chemo and others didn’t.

After nine years, 93.9% were still alive in the chemo group, vs. 93.8% in the no-chemo group.

And 84.3% were free of invasive disease in the chemo group vs. 83.3% in the no-chemo group.

In other words, there was no benefit to getting chemotherapy.

It’s important to note that this didn’t apply to every type of cancer. The criteria for the no-chemo benefit include cancers that:

• Are early stage, measuring 1-5 centimeters
• Haven’t spread to lymph nodes
• Are sensitive to estrogen
• Are HER2 negative
• Have a score of 11-25 on Oncotype DX gene test

This accounts for about 50% of all breast cancer diagnoses.

Until now, doctors recommend chemo to women—whether they needed it or not. 

They knew not all women would benefit from it, but there was no way of determining which women fell into this category.

It didn’t help that the National Cancer Institute has been recommending chemo to most women with breast cancer (even if it hadn’t spread to the lymph nodes) for nearly the past 20 years.

Their motto? Better safe than sorry. 

But with chemo, are you ever really “safe”?

Yes, chemo can save lives…sometimes.

But the only true guarantee that comes with chemotherapy is that you’ll suffer terrible side effects like hair loss, nausea, heart and nerve damage, and an increased risk of future cancers.  

This breakthrough study takes the guesswork out of breast cancer treatment. And it can finally give thousands of women the peace of mind of knowing they can SAFELY skip the chemo.

This is the type of study that should forever change the breast cancer standard of care.

It’s been a long time coming. 

To a brighter day,

Dr. Richard Gerhauser, M.D.