VOA常速英语2015--Oncotype DX基因检测（在线收听）

Oncotype DX基因检测

When samples of breast tissue show the presence of a malignant tumor, doctors often prescribe surgery followed by a six-month treatment of medicine, which could include chemotherapy to prevent further spread of cancer cells.

乳房组织样本检测出了恶性肿瘤的存在，随即医生会进行手术，之后接受6个月的药物治疗，其中包括防止癌细胞扩散的化疗。

Chemotherapy kills the remaining cancer cells but also has adverse side effects, nausea, hair loss, fatigue, as well as possible infertility and damage to some organs.

化疗能够杀死身体中存在的癌细胞，然而这将伴随着副作用，恶心、脱发、疲惫，还有可能会患有不育症，甚至对脏器构成损害。

We know that some drugs can affect the heart. There's a question about long-term effects of slightly increasing the risks of dementia for instance. Apart from that, of course, there's the unpleasantness of the four months of treatment that's required, and it'll often take people out of work for six months.

我们知道，许多药物能够对心脏构成影响。长期的副作用还有可能增加患痴呆症的风险。除此之外，这4个月的必要治疗还会给病患带来痛苦，在这6个月的时间里，人们通常不能工作。

A new test developed in the U.S., called Oncotype DX, determines how the patient will respond to chemotherapy.

在美国，人们研发了一种名叫“Oncotype DX”的检测技术，它能够决定患者对化疗的应答情况。

Oncotype DX is effectively telling you about the inside workings of the cell, which particular genes have gone wrong to create that particular cancer, and, from a reading of those genes, we can then get more information about whether this tumor is the sort that is likely to spread to some other part of the body, or not.

“Oncotype DX”能够告诉你体内细胞的工作情况，它也能够对造成癌细胞的某种基因作出判断，从这些基因中，我们能够对该肿瘤转移到其他脏器的可能性作出评估。

Avoiding chemotherapy after surgery means that patients like Nia Barton can resume their normal lives except for regular checkups to make sure they remain cancer free.

像尼亚·巴顿这样术后不进行化疗的病患，除了对癌细胞进行定期检查外，她可以恢复到正常人的生活。

Oncotype DX is one of several gene-based tests that can tell doctors how likely the recurrence of the disease is, and it is most accurate in the early stages. Similar tests, such as Prosigna and Endopredict, are undergoing clinical trials in the UK, Germany and Austria.

“Oncotype DX”是多种基因检测中的一种，它能够告诉医生疾病再次复发的可能性，这在早期治疗阶段更为准确。与之相似的还有“Prosigna”以及“Endopredict”，这两种检测正在英国、德国以及奥地利接受临床试验。

So far, Oncotype DX is used only in cases of breast cancer, but researchers say similar tests can be developed for other types of cancer.

到目前为止，“Oncotype DX”仅用于乳腺癌的检测，然而研究人员称，类似检测也能够运用到其他癌症当中。