[chrisy]

Mkchka,

Sounds like some very promising initial results!

My experience with tdm1 was that I had what I called "flu like symptoms" , fever, achy etc for a few days after infusion. The first infusion was worst and subsequent infusions were not as bad or sometimes not at all. My disease was only in my liver, and I remember a few days after my first infusion having intense pain in my liver, so intense I couldn't breathe. It lasted a few hours then went away. At the time, and I still believe this was screaming cancer cells dying. "pain at tumor site" is an occasional side effect of herceptin you know.

My onc found that "interesting" but of course could not really attribute it to anything.

On another note, part of the mechanism of action of herceptin, and presumably TDM1, is to elicit an immune response. Your immune system reacting to the invading herceptin antibody. Symptoms of this might nclude fever, achy...

I'm not claiming any of this is what you are experiencing. Just sharing my own experience on TDM1.

But overall, I think it's possible that what you are seeing are good signs, barticularly beginng with the scans. My oncologist always says "the proof is in the pudding" (wherever that expression came from!), and shrinkage is a good thing!