A new patent for predicting chemotherapeutic effects for patients with easily recurring breast cancer is drawing attention.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), Yonsei University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation registered the patent, titled “Apparatus and method for determining the prognosis of breast cancer and whether to use chemotherapy,” on Monday. The inventor is Paik Soon-myung, director of Yonsei Biomedical Research Institute.

The patent uses progesterone receptor immunostaining results and Ki67 protein immunostaining results to determine the treatment direction for breast cancer and predict chemotherapeutic effects.

Compared with conventional methods, the latest technique costs less with higher accuracy, researchers said.

“The method can provide a normalized index in predicting the prognosis of breast cancer and the chemotherapeutic effect due to relatively high accuracy, and thus finally can contribute to the improvement in national health and welfare,” the researchers said in the patent paper’s abstract.

According to the researchers, “Onko type Dx” is the only verified marker to predict chemotherapeutic effects. However, the test is very expensive, costing more than 4 million won ($3,565). Thus, the Dx test has been available only to some patients.

“One purpose of the present invention is to provide a low-cost, capable of determining the risk whether Dx onko type used prognosis and chemotherapy of breast cancer with a high degree of accuracy is more than 75 percent concordance of the classification device,” the researchers said.

The latest study received support from the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s R&D project for nurturing research-centered hospitals, under the project name, “Establishing open research business platform in strategic technology integration to meet the global medical demand.”

hwz@docdocdoc.co.kr

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