what is the meaning of HER2+

[Her2Sue]

I am confused. My tumor was Her2+, Surgery came back all clear margins and clear nodes. I am doing Herceptin for the rest of my year time. Does this mean I will definitley get cancer again? Do we even know? I was also er+ 90% I am just curious, because everything I read about her2 says it means poor prognosis! ACKKK! If anyone can let me know LOL I would appreciate it.
Thank you
Susan

[tousled1]

Susan,

Relax. Just because you are HER2+ does not mean your will get a recurrence. There are many women on this board who have never had a recurrence or developed mets.

[chrisy]

Hi!

Her2+ means that your tumor has too many copies of the Her2 protein, which is a growth factor causing (duh) growth. In breast cancer, it is associated with rapid growing cancers.

Historically, it WAS associated with poor prognosis because of this. Ignore that, it is OLD news, and the story has changed dramatically. That was before Herceptin and way before adjuvant use of herceptin for early stage cancers.

The availability of herceptin to target the "problem" of Her2+ has turned it around - now some doctors consider it a good prognosis. In the adjuvant trials which led to approval of herceptin for early stage, it showed 50% reduction in the rate of recurrence!

You picked a good time to get this (HA HA), in all likelihood you will leave this behind you for good!

BTW, nobody KNOWS whether anyone will have a recurrence - you just go on and hope!

Hope this helps.

[suzan w]

Hi Susan, If you go to the HOME section of this site, at the bottom you will see lots of links. The one Her2neu gene will give you lots of info on the subject!!! My oncologist told me that Her2+ used to have a poor prognosis, but with the advent of Herceptin, it is a whole new story now!

[nitewind]

Hi Susan
When I was first diagnosed my surgeon said "The bad news is that you are Her2+++, then he said "The good news is that you're Her2+++" I was confused but he laughed and told me about Herceptin. He said he thanks God for this new drug, it's like a miracle and a major break through in breast cancer studies. He was genuinely excited about it. So, I guess it's not as bad as it was before the use of Herceptin. Thankfully, we have people working to help find new treatments.
Good luck to you and try not to worry to much. (I'm a good one to talk about worrying! LOL)

[saleboat]

Hi--

Just writing to echo the thoughts expressed already here. It really is a bad news, good news story. It is an aggressive cancer, but the drugs are even more aggressive and with the adjuvent use of Herceptin, the outlook has changed for people like you and me, people who were lucky enough to get Herceptin as part of their treatment for early-stage breast cancer. I was diagnosed just as the study results were released in '05. Basically, anything you read about Her2 that was published before April 2005, ignore. When I'm feeling insecure about my prognosis, and I did have a lot of positive nodes, I read-up on all the new Her2+ drugs that are in the pipeline. There was a well-known onc, (who I think is on the board of this site) who publically said at a major cancer meeting that he thought that Her2+ cancers would be one of the first ones CURED. What a wonderful word.

Time heals a lot of these very natural fears. Wishing you some peace.

My best,
Jen