Becky, coming back to your above reply, I just found an other piece of info (dated 15 dec 06) which confirms your statement about the great usefulness of Herceptin even after progression:
http://www.roche.com/inv-update-2006-12-15c
Efficacy in Advanced (Metastatic) Breast Cancer
Hermine
An observational cohort study investigated a large patient pool (623 patients) treated with
Herceptin-based therapy under real-life conditions.<SUP>4</SUP> Continuing
Herceptin treatment after disease progression is associated with a marked survival advantage for patients with advanced stages of HER2-positive breast cancer:
-The median overall survival was 16.8 months for the group who did not continue
Herceptin. For the group who received
Herceptin after disease progression, the median overall survival had not yet been reached at 27.8 months
-Overall survival at 2 years was greater than 70% for those who continued
Herceptin treatment after disease progression compared with less than 25% for those who did not.
The fulll article carries info on various combos which include Herceptin.