Breast Cancer Index: What's your experience?

Has anyone had an experience with the breast cancer index test? It provides information to help women diagnosed with early stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and their oncologist make a personalized decision about extending anti-estrogen therapy beyond 5 years. They use a piece of your tumor for the testing. My oncologist is suggesting I live in hell for another 5 years, based on no new types of testing. Has anyone had this test? What do you all think of this test?

Has anyone had an experience with the breast cancer index test? It provides information to help women diagnosed with early stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and their oncologist make a personalized decision about extending anti-estrogen therapy beyond 5 years. They use a piece of your tumor for the testing. My oncologist is suggesting I live in hell for another 5 years, based on no new types of testing. Has anyone had this test? What do you all think of this test?

Has anyone had an experience with the breast cancer index test? It provides information to help women diagnosed with early stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and their oncologist make a personalized decision about extending anti-estrogen therapy beyond 5 years. They use a piece of your tumor for the testing. My oncologist is suggesting I live in hell for another 5 years, based on no new types of testing. Has anyone had this test? What do you all think of this test?

I have had this test. I learned about it on breastcancer.org., called the company, printed out all the paperword and took it to my doc, who had never heard of it. The doc later said she was going to start using it for all her patients. This was three years ago. It is now in the NCCCN guidelines.

The BCI has a yes or no answer to extended hormonal therapy, and a spectrum for risk. You can have benefit for extended therapy and low risk, benefit for extended therapy and high risk. no benefit and low risk, no benefit and high risk.

At the time the cutoff for high risk was 4.7 on a scale of 10. I was a little over 5 so I was high risk. I talked with the company and they had gotten a lot of negative feedback about this cutoff so they have changed things since.

It's up to us whether to test Oncotype, BCI or any other test. I did do some research and decided to trust the BCI. I orginally wanted to do 7 years of letrozole (I read that 7 was as good as 10) but I also needed to treat my bones.

One oncologist told me I could do two years later on- not sure now!

I don't know if BCI is standard practice anywhere yet. I had to make it happen. But it IS in the guidelines. So I would think you can get a doctor to order it. (I went so far as to request it be done on a specific block from my surgery- but I am a little over the top on these things!)

What part of the tissue did you request and why would it matter? Thank you.

Just ignore that! I got way too involved in looking at my specimen blocks because my tumor was part ductal, part lobular, part HER2+, part HER2- and I had contradictory tests and wanted the worst part of the tumor to be tested. I don't even remember how I knew anything about the blocks! For BCI I had the same block sent that had gone to the Oncotype for consistency. Honestly not necessary!