VIDEO - Oncotyping: A new way to determine the severity of breast cancer

When it comes to breast cancer, not all tumors are created equal. Small tumors may pack a deadlier punch, depending on the specific type of cancer. To determine the exact type of breast cancer doctors are using a new technique called oncotyping. "Oncotyping is a test that they generated on the actual tissue that you take out of the breast. They used that information and they developed this really kind of complicated mathematical equation to look at the genes in somebody that has a breast cancer and they recognized there's different genes in those cancer cells and so they created a 21 gene assay," says Dr. Lea Blackwell, a breast surgical oncologist at Lee Memorial Health System. By following the outcomes of people with various strains of breast cancer, researchers determined which were the worst subtypes.