View Single Post
Old 11-15-2014, 09:23 AM   #15
'lizbeth
Senior Member
 
'lizbeth's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Sunny San Diego
Posts: 2,214
Re: YES!!! It is here. Phase II vaccine trial for Her2 3+

Thinkpositive, keep working on the positive . . .

We should start another thread about pCR after neoadjuvant treatment and share the latest numbers. Perhaps the data is not out too many years in a large number of patients, but my expectation is that recurrence rates in this subset is extremely rare.
I understand about wanting to throw every treatment option at cancer (but the kitchen sink). There is the law of diminishing returns, and (like flying) the backside of the power curve, where the more you give (such as cancer treatments) the worse the situation becomes. There comes a time to accept good fortune, such as a complete response, and acknowledge the blessing of being one of the lucky ones with a great prognosis.

I personally am ready for vaccines to be approved. I've watched many women suffer through the trauma over a recurrence in the last 7 years since I've been diagnosed. And I've been with those who remained cancer free but suffered through the worry and anxiety about recurrence for years.

I was disappointed about the PRESENT trial only being for low expressors. Yet, I was excited for the ladies (and gentlemen) who got lumped into triple negative standard of care and were excluded from Her2 treatments. With interim data, 1 of 4 progressed within the control arm, and for 48 months no one progressed in the vaccine arm.

I believe we should be very excited when a subset is successfully treated, such as HLA A2 positive. We should be very excited when treatments cross over from breast cancer - to gastric cancer - to prostate cancer. What wonderful progress!

And by dividing and conquering, more and more researchers can focus on helping the subsets of us that need better treatments.

So if you are HLA A2 negative, it is not necessarily a treatment option that should be for the negatives, but find another positive marker that another subset has in common. Focus on treating that.

Another good reason to "Think Positive" . . .

Last edited by 'lizbeth; 11-15-2014 at 09:24 AM.. Reason: typo, as usual
'lizbeth is offline   Reply With Quote