[chrisy]

Rich,
Your mom would probably qualify for the trial that runtolive posted in terms of the stage of disease and that she has not had prior chemo for metastatic disease. There is an exclusion for some types of chronic conditions including pulmonary, which might be an issue due to your mom's emphysema. You'd have to check on this.

Your other question, what would be 'standard or proven' - your mom's case is similar to mine, I had no adjuvant chemo so my first chemo experience was in the metastatic setting. Taxol+herceptin would be a 'proven' therapy (in fact, it is the other arm of the DM1 study that runtolive posted). I had this plus carboplatin, but I had extensive liver mets and they wanted to hit it hard.

Truth is, tho, even if your mom qualified for the trial, she might be in the taxol/herceptin arm anyway.

The taxanes (taxol and taxotere) are highly synergistic with herceptin, so that would be a good bet. I don't know how extensive her liver mets are, but if there is a significant amount of disease there, you want to get it under control.

Your mom and her doctor will have a better idea of how well she is able to tolerate treatment given her age and other health issues, but I can tell you that many women of her age do very well with chemo.

Rich, I'm so very impressed with the amount of research you've done on this - your mom is a very lucky woman to have you advocating on her behalf.