National Cancer Institute National Cancer Institute
U.S. National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute
NCI Home Cancer Topics Clinical Trials Cancer Statistics Research & Funding News About NCI
The TAILORx Breast Cancer Trial
    Posted: 05/23/2006
Page Options
Print This Page  Print This Page
E-Mail This Document  E-Mail This Document
Quick Links
Director's Corner

Dictionary of Cancer Terms

NCI Drug Dictionary

Funding Opportunities

NCI Publications

Advisory Boards and Groups

Science Serving People

Español
NCI Highlights
Restructuring the NCI Clinical Trials Enterprise

Clinical Trials Reporting Program

Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials

States Requiring Coverage of Clinical Trial Costs
Related Pages
Search for Clinical Trials
NCI's PDQ® Cancer Clinical Trials Registry.

Breast Cancer Home Page
NCI's gateway for information about breast cancer.
TAILORx: Testing Personalized Treatment for Breast Cancer

The Trial Assigning IndividuaLized Options for Treatment (Rx), or TAILORx, will examine whether genes that are frequently associated with risk of recurrence for women with early-stage breast cancer can be used to assign patients to the most appropriate and effective treatment.

The majority of women with early-stage breast cancer are advised to receive chemotherapy in addition to radiation and hormonal therapy, yet research has not demonstrated that chemotherapy benefits all of them equally. TAILORx seeks to incorporate a molecular profiling test (a technique that examines many genes simultaneously) into clinical decision making, and thus spare women unnecessary treatment if chemotherapy is not likely to be of substantial benefit. TAILORx is one of the first trials to examine a methodology for personalizing cancer treatment.

The study will enroll over 10,000 women at 900 sites in the United States and Canada. Women recently diagnosed with estrogen-receptor and/or progesterone-receptor positive, Her2/neu-negative breast cancer that has not yet spread to the lymph nodes are eligible for the study. (See a summary of the TAILORx protocol, which includes contact information for those sites currently enrolling participants.)

TAILORx is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and is coordinated by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG). All of the NCI-sponsored clinical trials groups that perform breast cancer research studies have collaborated in the trial’s development and are participating in this study.
About the Trial
Personalized Treatment Trial for Breast Cancer Launched
The Trial Assigning IndividuaLized Options for Treatment (Rx), or TAILORx, was launched on May 23, 2006, to examine whether genes that are frequently associated with risk of recurrence for women with early-stage breast cancer can be used to assign patients to the most appropriate and effective treatment. Questions and Answers, TAILORx en Español

Tailored Treatment for Breast Cancer
In this trial, doctors will use a test called the Oncotype DX Breast Cancer Assay, which measures the activity of a set of genes in breast tumor tissue, to determine which women will receive adjuvant chemotherapy in addition to hormone therapy.

Benchmarks: Vol. 6/Issue 3
Articles about tailored cancer therapy and molecular diagnostics in the May 23, 2006, issue of Benchmarks, an online feature of the National Cancer Institute's Mass Media Office.
General Information
Targeted Cancer Therapies
This NCI fact sheet describes targeted cancer therapies, which are drugs that block the growth and spread of cancer by interfering with specific molecules involved in carcinogenesis (the process by which normal cells are transformed into cancer cells) and tumor growth. National Cancer Institute Fact Sheet 7.49

Molecular Targets in Cancer Therapy
The past two decades of biomedical research have yielded an enormous amount of information about the molecular events that take place during the development of cancer.

Program for the Assessment of Clinical Cancer Tests (PACCT)
The PACCT has been developed to ensure that development of the next generation of laboratory tests is efficient and effective.
Back to TopBack to Top


A Service of the National Cancer Institute
Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health USA.gov