HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - BBC--herceptin shown to save lives (listen up NHS!!)

Lani · 01-09-2007, 05:42 PM

there was a study of the Pharmacokinetics of Herceptin authored mainly by researchers from Genentech showing that there was a 43% difference in how patients metabolized/excreted Hercepti and therefore how long it stayed active in the body. Genentech has no motivation to have patients tested to see if they are fast or slow metabolizers/excreters, but European governments do, if they will "step up to the plate" and do the studies themselves. Also, Herceptin vials need to be kept within a relatively narrow range of temperatures at all times--perhaps they could convince the manufacturer to put a smart RFID on each bottle to detect if it has ever gotten outside the range of safe temperatures. Should that be the case (and you know Europe and the UK lack adequate airconditioning!) it might be one reason for a less tha spectacular response to Herceptin.

Also, if some of these tumors are ER+ (45% of her2+ tumors are thought to be) it is quite likely these European patients are on tamoxifen and once patients are on tamoxifen only once the Herceptin is over, resistance can (and in fact is expected to) develop if the Herceptin and chemo were not sufficient to rid the bone marrow of the slowly dividing breast cancer stem cells. Whether the tumors will also develop resistance to AIs (and when) when given without herceptin is still also being determined.

Perhaps the longer course of Herceptin allows herceptin resisitance to develop and only shows up later and the shorter course would be better.

There is so much to find out and once Tykerb is approved it may confuse things as few will want to get less than state of the art treatment in one arm of a clinical trial.

Just my two cents worth for the moment...

01-09-2007, 05:42 PM	#4
Lani Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,778	Christine there was a study of the Pharmacokinetics of Herceptin authored mainly by researchers from Genentech showing that there was a 43% difference in how patients metabolized/excreted Hercepti and therefore how long it stayed active in the body. Genentech has no motivation to have patients tested to see if they are fast or slow metabolizers/excreters, but European governments do, if they will "step up to the plate" and do the studies themselves. Also, Herceptin vials need to be kept within a relatively narrow range of temperatures at all times--perhaps they could convince the manufacturer to put a smart RFID on each bottle to detect if it has ever gotten outside the range of safe temperatures. Should that be the case (and you know Europe and the UK lack adequate airconditioning!) it might be one reason for a less tha spectacular response to Herceptin. Also, if some of these tumors are ER+ (45% of her2+ tumors are thought to be) it is quite likely these European patients are on tamoxifen and once patients are on tamoxifen only once the Herceptin is over, resistance can (and in fact is expected to) develop if the Herceptin and chemo were not sufficient to rid the bone marrow of the slowly dividing breast cancer stem cells. Whether the tumors will also develop resistance to AIs (and when) when given without herceptin is still also being determined. Perhaps the longer course of Herceptin allows herceptin resisitance to develop and only shows up later and the shorter course would be better. There is so much to find out and once Tykerb is approved it may confuse things as few will want to get less than state of the art treatment in one arm of a clinical trial. Just my two cents worth for the moment...