Thousands of breast cancer sufferers carry 'survival' protein It could offer hope for tens of thousands who are currently forced to endure months of uncomfortable therapies following surgery. "Cancer is personal, it's not a "one size fits all,"" said Professor Graham Ball, of Nottingham Trent's John van Geest Cancer Research Centre. DACH1 has been found to be a very good predictor of patient survival. If we can predict that some women would survive for many years based on surgery alone, they would not need to undergo unnecessary and aggressive treatments such as chemotherapy, which are more suited to those with poor prognosis. Other forms of treatment may be of greater benefit to those with good prognosis.  Researchers believe the study could have implications for the development of more personal approaches to treating breast cancer. The study authors claim it is essential because chemotherapy and radiotherapy "can result in medical complications, reduced quality of life and economic burden." "Crucially, some cancers present with no greater mortality risk if untreated with chemotherapy," the report authors added. The study was welcomed by cancer charities who called for further research. Dr Emma Smith, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "This research is another step towards personalised medicine but it remains to be seen whether it can be developed into a test that's accurate enough to ensure all women still get the best treatment and if it offers benefits over already available tests. Breast cancer survival is amongst the highest for any type of cancer, but we need more research like this to reach the day when all women beat the disease, and have the best quality of life during and after their cancer diagnoses. Dr Des Powe, a principal researcher in the Department of Cellular Pathology at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "Personalised medicine remains a key objective in cancer treatment and will be advanced by novel approaches that sift out the important genes, such as ours, that drive an individual's tumour growth." The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.