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Rich, I found this conference to be more about basic research. What I saw was more about why Herceptin doesn't work for some HER2+ patients. One of the explanations I saw was that Herceptin works better for patients whose receptors are homodimers rather heterodimers. In other words the receptor is made up of two Her2 proteins rather than a Her2 and a Her3 protein. Most of what I saw was nowhere near clinical trials. Maybe Stephanie has more insight into this than I do.
Several of the researchers that I talked to felt like we were very close to breast cancer being a manageable chronic disease, much more so than many of the other cancers. I will post more later. I have been catching up on my yard and garden this week end.
Leslie
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In the world of destiny, there are no statistics.
Jan. 26- mammogram and ultrasound- suspicious lump
Mid-February- lumpectomy, infiltrating ductal carcinoma ~4.5 cm and a 1 cm DCIS, did not get clear margins, did not check lymph nodes
ER+/PR+, her2 +++, nuclear grade 3 of 3
February 20-PET scan showed something on liver. No biopsy.
March- Started carboplatin, herceptin, taxol on a four week cycle
May 3- Pet scan, with intent to do a biopsy, found nothing, liver or breast- no biopsy because there is nothing to biopsy
June 21- new onc, very concerned that there had been no biopsy,
June 18th-CAT scan, bone scan-negative
August 7th - Brain MRI-negative
August 9th- mastectomy, all pathology negative
January 2008 still NED! New oncologist -herceptin for full year after chemo- until July, and tamoxifen---negative scans since May '07
July 2008-Finished Herceptin!
Last edited by fauxgypsy; 04-26-2009 at 03:35 PM..
Reason: added more
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