odd/interesting Dr. meeting re. my latest echo.
 

Hi all - I'm in the TEACH trial and today had my 3 mth visit for blood and results of last weeks ECHO.

My first echo for this trial was in late jan. and the technical report said 60% EF (ejection) "visual". The written report (that is "interpreted" by another doctor) repeated this, saying my EF was 60%.

Today, however, the report (that had been interpreted by a different doctor than the first one), said "overall EF was 45-50%". Even though the technical report again said "visual" was 60%.

Now, when I did the UW vaccine trial I had mugas done and my EF was always around 50%. So the first Echo seemed a bit high to me.

My oncologist said it's probably just a "bad" reading of the Echo in Jan. so he's having a cardiologist look at both.

However, the clinical trial protocol says if you have an EF drop of 20% you have to have it re-done in 2 weeks (while still taking tykerb). So I'm having another echo in 2 weeks, plus my other 2 are being re-read. As I'm having no side effects, and a lowering of the EF is not a major side effect of tykerb (it is of Herceptin), we're not really concerned - and I'm sure glad I'm not paying for these tests!

BTW, my onc has a few other women in this trial and so far a slight rash for a few days has been the only side effect. They are thinking/hoping it might mean that if you've not had a recurrence, nor a lot of other chemos, and are not combining tykerb with anothr drug, then tykerb may be very easy on the body - just a theory at this stage.

Marianne

Hi Marianne,

I had an echo prior to chemotherapy in 2002 and had a very high EF of 76%. No subsequent echoes were done. Then during preliminary testing for the TEACH trial, my EF came out as around 46% at first when the echo was done, and then after review by the cardiologist it was "50-55%". In addition, I was having palpitations. (One look at the monitor during the echo was enough for me!) I was not comfortable with starting a drug that still is under testing to see what the cardiac effects might be with my reading being just at the margin. (One has to have a minimum reading of 50% for the trial.)

I came back to Alaska, and prior to having another echo done here I lost about 5 pounds of water weight (Atkin's diet, on fish and chicken). The echo done here came out as 65%.

If the person doing the echo does a LOT of them and is really good at it, I trust the visual more.

A.A.