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12-21-2005, 01:11 AM

Stanford University Hospital will usually do a complete second pathological opinion ie, looking at the slides, staining for hormonal receptors and doing FISH as well as IHC for her2neu (and perhaps Ki67) I do not know if they will do the FISH test alone. You could also try UCLA or UCSF, but they are less user-friendly in my experience.

Most hospitals which are not comprehensive cancer centers do less of the tests or even, in most cases, send the test out to various labs, whose experience and expertise are not equivalent (to be polite). That is why it has been so hard to get good info on the prognosis of patients who are her2neu positive--the testing has been so variable that it has not even been certain that they are including the correct patients. The original results of Herceptin were less than spectacular, in fact they almost gave up on developing it, because they did not have a good way to determine who was likely to benefit from it and so the initial results were hardly significant let alone impressive. Once her2neu 1+ and, then most her2neu 2+ (those who were FISH negative)patients were taken out of the trials, the true value of Herceptin became evident.

Good luck!

12-21-2005, 01:11 AM	#19
Lani Guest Posts: n/a	information on FISH testing Stanford University Hospital will usually do a complete second pathological opinion ie, looking at the slides, staining for hormonal receptors and doing FISH as well as IHC for her2neu (and perhaps Ki67) I do not know if they will do the FISH test alone. You could also try UCLA or UCSF, but they are less user-friendly in my experience. Most hospitals which are not comprehensive cancer centers do less of the tests or even, in most cases, send the test out to various labs, whose experience and expertise are not equivalent (to be polite). That is why it has been so hard to get good info on the prognosis of patients who are her2neu positive--the testing has been so variable that it has not even been certain that they are including the correct patients. The original results of Herceptin were less than spectacular, in fact they almost gave up on developing it, because they did not have a good way to determine who was likely to benefit from it and so the initial results were hardly significant let alone impressive. Once her2neu 1+ and, then most her2neu 2+ (those who were FISH negative)patients were taken out of the trials, the true value of Herceptin became evident. Good luck!