what comes next?

[deb-steph]

i was diagnosed with stage IIb her2 positive breast cancer in december 2005. have finished 4 doses of a/c and 9 of 12 doses of taxol/herceptin. just finished 33 doses of radiation and am now on herceptin every 3 weeks thru april. does anyone know what the recurrence rate is and what type of surveilance will be done?

[Bev]

Hi DS,

Had a mammo about a month after finishing rads. I will be alternating between mammos and MRIs every six months. I had the option of doing both at once, 1x per year. I know my Doc doesn't favor doing other scans for early stage when you're asymptomatic. I imagine I'll be getting a chest x-ray for port removal.

For recurrence, hit the search on the tool bar. It was discussed recently. Local recurrence was not that high, but I guess it depends on a lot of things. BB

[deb-steph]

thanks for the info. i have heard that there is an mri mammo but i don't know how it would be different than an mri. i know a woman where i live who had her2 breast cancer and is now 9 years out with no recurrence. good news. i will let you know if i get any more info from my dr on my next visit

[mts]

Hello,

The Breast MRI is where you lay on your tummy and your breasts "dangle" in a hole in the table. Regular MRI's are just to other parts of the body and those are usually laying on your back. I do know that breast MRI's are usually considered the norm for those who have dense breast tissue because the mammogram does not always catch tumors with dense breasts (like me).
As for your surveillance, you need to find out if you have dense breasts. If so, then breast MRI along with mammos and ultrasound are suggested (at least they were for me). The Mammogram picks-up microcalcifications where the breast MRI does not. Therefore the two are good together. The breast MRI is very expensive, but again, dense breast tissue usually dictates whether or not you need one...
As for recurrence rate, well, because of Herceptin it seems that our prognosis is pretty good! Not a lot of data is out on rates because many HER2 + women in early stage of BC have not been studied long term yet. Of the studies that are out there, it is very promising.

Best of luck to you!
Maria