HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - For Alaska Angel and others--policy statement on use of herceptin

Lani · 01-07-2007, 08:06 PM

once you open the Pandora's box of looking retrospectively at what a patient's tumors genetic characteristics were you will get lots of angry patients who realize they got chemo when chances were less than 10% that they would recur, angry patients who did not get herceptin...and the genetic testing and THE INTERPRETATION of the genetic testing in terms of what it means regarding the best treatment and true prognosiss are still in their infancy, inexact and NOT YET ready for prime time.

I certainly hope it will be soon. Hope is on the horizon as the Wall St. Journal reported that due to a price war, the cost of the Affymetric chips on which they do microgene arrays is plummeting. If this could be passed on, the speed with which genetic testing of individual tumors begins to be routine will be accelerated. In the meantime, tell anyone who is recently diagnosed to ask for a small bit of their tumor or core/needle biopsy to be fresh frozen. Testing is best done on fresh (not available yet except in trials), then fresh-frozen, and last on paraffin-embedded, where different techniques are used as I understand it.

Advocacy and fund-raising are ways to push research in this much needed direction.

01-07-2007, 08:06 PM	#4
Lani Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,778	I think it is like the elephant in the room noone wants to admit is there... once you open the Pandora's box of looking retrospectively at what a patient's tumors genetic characteristics were you will get lots of angry patients who realize they got chemo when chances were less than 10% that they would recur, angry patients who did not get herceptin...and the genetic testing and THE INTERPRETATION of the genetic testing in terms of what it means regarding the best treatment and true prognosiss are still in their infancy, inexact and NOT YET ready for prime time. I certainly hope it will be soon. Hope is on the horizon as the Wall St. Journal reported that due to a price war, the cost of the Affymetric chips on which they do microgene arrays is plummeting. If this could be passed on, the speed with which genetic testing of individual tumors begins to be routine will be accelerated. In the meantime, tell anyone who is recently diagnosed to ask for a small bit of their tumor or core/needle biopsy to be fresh frozen. Testing is best done on fresh (not available yet except in trials), then fresh-frozen, and last on paraffin-embedded, where different techniques are used as I understand it. Advocacy and fund-raising are ways to push research in this much needed direction.