[Christine MH-UK]

1 does herceptin delay or stop recurrence?
Nobody can say for sure. Roche argues that it stops it permanently, but the UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence suggests that it might just delay it (but they were basing this on tamoxifen).

2 what is best length of time for treatmentwith herceptin to be continued to be most effective?
Again, nobody really knows. The big international trials have all used one year. One of them used two years but the announcement of results keeps on getting delayed (which can mean that the trial didn't work out). There are some small trials that have had excellent results using herceptin only during chemo, but they are small. So, there are suspicions that the full year may not be necessary, but nobody will do the big trials on this until they know for certain that two years doesn't make a difference.

3 am I right to be very worried about being her2+++ ? Possibly not. It depends alot on what your other traits are and what chemo you have had. Even at that, the odds can't tell you what will happen to you as an individual (this was pointed out by the young doctor who gave me my surgery results. My results were lousy and, according to the statistics, I shouldn't be o.k. three and a 1/2 years later).

4 what % of people with her2 have disease free survival of 5 or 10 or more years?
Again, nobody knows how newer chemos and herceptin will affect things.

Basically, it is impossible to know what is going to happen.