[Joan M]

Kim,

It's great that you have reached NED, and that the lung tumor is now stable with only Herceptin!!

Sometimes I think there are a lot of "ifs" and that the devil is in the details when it comes to chemosensitivity testing.

You're a pioneer here!! Which FDA-approved drugs did the lab suggest for your mutations? Are the drugs for only breast cancer patients or for patients with other cancers or medical conditions? Although that might not matter much. Everolimus (Affinitor) was originally approved by the FDA for another disease and now has several other approvals. In 2012, they approved it for advanced breast cancer patients who are hormone receptor positive, HER2 negative, in combination with exemestane (Aromasin). I noticed that you were hormone positive when you were stage 0. Are your mets the same?

It seems that the lab's list may be for general breast cancer patients and perhaps other cancer patients as well. But the therapy could be helpful even though you are HER2+. The FDA approved the drug combination based on the clinical trial criteria (nothing more, nothing less), but that doesn't mean that it won't work in other circumstances.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/d...fda-everolimus

Were the suggested clinical trials for only advanced breast cancer patients? And was having the mutation the only criteria for the trial?

I would be open to using drugs already approved by the FDA for other cancers or purposes, as well as clinical trial drugs connected to a particular mutation.

http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/adu...-trials/12-155

I don't think that genetic tests are not necessary good. My only concern was that some cancer patients might think that they're the answer. If the patients' eyes are open it doesn't seem like it's a problem.

Joan