The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved use of a genetic test on Tuesday that may help doctors better predict whether women with early stage breast cancer will relapse in five or 10 years.

The MammaPrint test is the first to win formal FDA approval. This information could aid in determining the best course of action to fight the cancer.

It looks at 70 genes in the breast tumor, analyzes their level of activity, and then assigns a numerical ranking. This ranking determines a woman's degree of risk for relapse.

Those women determined to be high-risk are two times more likely to relapse than those considered low-risk.

The test results leave doctors in a better position to determine if treatment with surgery, radiation, and hormones would be sufficient, or if their patients need more aggressive treatment with chemotherapy.

The test appears to be much better at predicting who will not relapse than who will. Studies show that when the test determines a woman is at low risk for relapse it is correct 95 percent of the time, whereas it is only correct about a quarter of the time if the test predicts a high risk of recurrence.

Source: Xinhua