[Becky]

I think one of the reasons that you need to be close to when treatment ended is that there can be reminants of cancer or dead cancer remaining for the dendrites to find (dendrites are what "finds" the "invader") so they can rush to the lymph nodes and get the immune response started.

For the record, this is why I took Leukine as my white blood cell booster over Neulasta during chemo (87 doses to be exact). One criteria for that is that there were lymph nodes remaining on the cancer side (I had 10 removed so there were plenty left). My rationale was that by taking the Leukine, I was, in effect, hopefully self vaccinating.

I am still here over 5 years out so who knows. I did Leukine because at the time, Herceptin wasn't available in the adjuvant setting and I was node positive and I thought it would give me the best shot considering there was no Herceptin yet.

Oddly, right after chemo ended, Herceptin was available so I did take that solo (without chemo).

In the end, one never really knows what part of treatment works - was it just the surgery alone, chemo, rads, Herceptin, Leukine?

Just wanted to share that I've had my share of Leukine too. If you have any questions on it, I do know all about it - how it works and the side effects.