Breast cancer cells evade HER-targeted therapy
 

Article: http://www.breastcancersource.com/br...78_0_0_0.aspx?

Study: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetch...esentation=PDF

Hopeful

Tykerb addresses this problem by inhibiting both HER1 and 2 pathways.

Dr. Kent Osborne is expected to shortly start a new clinical trial using 3 drugs which inhibit all of the HER2 pathways. I will try and email him to see what the status of this trial is.

Regards
Joe

Thanks JOE! You know I have been keen to keep an eye on Dr Osborne's progress... let me know if I need to camp out at his office door to get some info!

I still think there are other "drivers" of the cancer, such as hormones, that need to be considered.

Many of us who can't get control, or KEEP control, of our tumors have to have other biological factors at work then the HER family of 4 pathways. Look how many of our members did not do well with Tykerb and other new drugs, rest their souls.

At the American Society of Cancer Researchers Annual Meeting in San Diego I met more than one person who was already at work at studying WHY Tykerb had better results in mice than people.

When I discussed this a bit with them they both (and they were not working together) said that one of the difficulties with this is that more discoveries are being made about what gets the cancer started in the first place, and they are waiting for these studies.

The amount of research going on is really incredible, as they get deeper and deeper into the cancer molecules.

Just an fyi that as much hype as Tykerb has gotten I can tell you that I know of one renowned dr who feels very strongly that it's overhyped and pertuzamab is a much better drug. This carries a great deal of weight for me since this onc's hospital doesn't have access to pertuzamab.

Joe, Was this trial ever posted? I am a new patient of Dr. Osborne's and have just started Taxol/Herceptin with him.

Article/study
 

Hopeful,

I couldn't open the article, said 'page not found'.

The study is a bit over my head. Anyone care to comment? Does the study indicate that Herceptin is not targeting the cells or that cancer cells are evading 'targeted therapy'?

Diannes

Dianne,

I went into the article archive part of the site and got this link to the article: http://www.breastcancersource.com/ne...itemId=3436130

It should work now.

Hopeful

I would be interested in watching this thread.

From what I could gather from the article - I'm no scientist - it sounds as if Herceptin (the monoclonal antibody mentioned) does have some effect?

Only problem is, patients like me don't know if it has attached to their immune system or not. Seems like they would have some type of blood test to determine that. They can check to see if a person has hepatitis antibodies, why not herceptin?

Diannes