The US Food and Drug Administration has approved MammaPrint, a new genetic test that can help predict whether a woman's early stage breast cancer is likely to come back after initial treatment. The test is one of several that could help breast cancer patients and their doctors make decisions about how aggressively to treat the disease.

MammaPrint, made by the Dutch firm Agendia, measures the activity in 70 genes that are related to the risk of breast cancer recurrence. It then uses a mathematical formula to predict whether the chance of recurrence is high or low.

Combined with other tests and clinical information (the size of the tumor, whether it has spread to lymph nodes, whether it has hormone receptors, etc.), the MammaPrint results could help doctors plan treatment, the FDA says.