[karen z]

Also, HUGE news from the ATLAS Study re the benefits of 10 years over 5 years of Tamoxifen. Preliminary data were published in a December issue of The Lancet. This was a massive study with important results which may very well change the standard of care treatment. Please note that similar research with AIs is not done/did not come out yet.

Some very interesting work on neuro-cognitive and fatigue factors and chemo. My notes indicate that 56-95 percent of folks can experience fatigue following chemo (this can be long-lasting). Surprising news (maybe/maybe not) is that patients have a pretreatment propensity to neural "vulnerability" and fatigue (perhaps more vulnerable to worry ahead of time).

As Lani indicated in her first posting, there are several effective combinations of treatment for HER2 (making it one of the better breast cancers to have- see her list) and TDM-1 is expected to be approved soon (I repeatedly heard 2-3 months). Once again, heard several times that HER2 HAS gone from one of the worst cancers to one of the better ones to have due to treatment options. Dr. Slamon was very hopeful that we would eventually see a cure for HER2 cancer at any stage (he "did not have a doubt"). Please note that he could not specify a time frame of course.

I certainly walked away with the info that if one has HER2 then one should have Chemo/Herceptin- tumor size does not appear to be relevant at this point (but we have known that for a bit now).

And, finally, the best way to digest the information is to read it ---over and over again. If one thinks it is difficult to digest in written form, imagine trying to "take it all in" in a 20 minute presentation. Many of us listen to the talks and then read/reread to better understand. This is true in any field.