"personalized" treatment with genetic profile test

[repopter]

I'm interested in hearing thoughts about the pros and cons of testing for recurrence risk with the new Mammaprint test or OncotypeDX. Mammaprint was just "cleared" by the FDA (don't know how that differs from FDA approval).

The tests say they can help me decide whether to have chemo. But if my risk in in the intermediate range, wouldn't it make more sense to simply go ahead with chemo, but have chemosensitivity testing to determine how effective specific drugs would be against my particular cancer cells?

[winggirl]

I'm interested in the MammaPrint test. From what I understand women with early breast cancer have the gene test to help predcit whether they'll relapse in 5-10 years. That information could influence how aggresively to fight the initial tumor. The MammaPrint works by analzing the level of activity of 70 genes in a sample of the women's surgically removed tumor and provides  numerical ranking. Women ranked as high-risk have about twice the likeihood of a relaspe in the next 5-10 years as women who are ranked low-risk. Gene testing can help doctors and pateints winnow out who's most likely to need chemo from who might gamble on skipping it. The FDA approval doesn't mean the MammaPrint works better than what's already used just that its maker sought formal FDA review and approval. Any tool to help the fight against breast cancer I'm on board.