Prognostic value, not clinical utility
“This is a nice abstract. It looks at inflammatory cytokines and provides evidence that inflammatory cytokines, particularly IL-6, could have a prognostic role in predicting risk of recurrence in HER2-negative disease, and the team did a very nice job in multivariate analysis looking at different factors,” said Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, from the Mass General Cancer Center in Boston, the invited discussant for the study.*
In an interview, Dr. Bardia said that the finding “provides prognostic value, but does not provide clinical utility. It’s unclear if we used this assay and it identified that a patient was at high risk of recurrence whether we could change that. Is there any intervention that could be done to potentially alter the course of disease, alter the natural history? That’s unknown.”
He agreed with Dr. Sparano and colleagues that validation of the finding was still needed, ideally in a prospective or retrospective cohort study.
The study was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, Komen Foundation, and Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Sparano disclosed relationships with multiple companies. Dr. Bardia disclosed a consulting or advisory role and research funding to his institution from multiple companies.
*Correction, 6/4/21: An earlier version of this article misstated Dr. Bardia's name.