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Dear Lolly, Kim and Marianne,
Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile, but we have had a difficult January. Lisa completed her sixth vaccine treatment on January 4, 2005. We came home and the following week she took her quarterly scans. To our shock two small tumors appeared in her left lung where her old tumor had been. To make a long story short Lisa had the upper lobe of her left lung removed on January 28, 2005 and she is recovering as we speak.
Although this is bad news, there appears to be some silver lining to this cloud. Lisa was tested after her second vaccine treatment and was having a strong immune response (as were all of the participants up to that point.) When these two small tumors appeared (3mm and 8mm) in Lisa's lung and we decided to have surgery, we immediately contacted Dr. Disis and Dr. Salazar. The requested that staining for t-cells be done to the tumors to see if the vaccine was having an affect. We received the pathology report two days ago and discovered (among other good things) that in fact two different types of t-cells had "inflitrated" the tumors and were "reactive", whatever that means. We contacted Dr. Disis and we have decided to obtain the slides from our pathologist to do more testing. The good news is that at this preliminary point the vaccine appears to be doing its job. More tests will have to be done to see what is going on, but at this point we have great hope.
In addition, the pathology indicates that the cancer was small and limited to a very specific area. Dr. Disis is hypothesizing that this could be the result of the vaccine. At this point our oncologist believes that the surgery might be all of the treatment we need in light of the early point at which we removed the tumors, however he is proposing to add gemzar to her herceptin treatments for the next few months as a precaution. We plan to investigate further the possible impact the Gemzar may have on Lisa's immune response and further to see if can further boost the response if there would be a negative affect.
In sum, we have had a set back here, but I believe that in the end the vaccine will be of benefit and that ultimately we will achieve the permanent remission we seek.
I will keep you all posted.
Good Luck and God Bless, Brian
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