[chrisy]

Hi Cheryl,
What you are hearing is correct, you have "done" it.

I'm not real clear on what stage your cancer was, but it sounds as if you have had all the treatment that would be considered "standard of care" as adjuvant treatment. You should specifically recheck the stat on recurrence - 50/50 seems incorrect, way too high particularly having no positive nodes prior to the surgery.

There is a statistic on adjuvant use of Herceptin which is that getting herceptin reduces your chance of recurrence by 50% compared to not getting Herceptin. So if your chance of recurrence before Herceptin would have been 20%, you reduce that to 10% if you get Herceptin. Maybe what you heard was a mixed up version of reducing your risk by 50%.

I think the recurrence stat was not clearly communicated to you.

At any rate, it is not standard of care to have any treatment beyond what you have had, although some ladies here who were diagnosed with Stage III and at high risk for recurrence have been able to extend their time on Herceptin and/or get Tykerb. Tykerb is not FDA approved for early stage bc, so this would be a challenge.

First, my suggestion is to get clarity on your staging and recurrence risk.