PET/CT results good! next step?

[Jackie07]

Pam,

I just read your old postings about your Chinese medicine prescription. If you can take a picture of the Chinese words and either post it on the Board or e-mail it to me, I can translate them for you and possibly do some research on the ingredients.

When my Mother did acupuncture treatment for her hand (arthritis?) 30, 40 years ago, she had bruises from the needles quite a bit. You really need to be careful not to get it on your 'bad' arm and also not to ruin your good arm.

Sending you good vibes.

[Joan M]

Pam,

Great to hear that the scans show no progression.

Joan

[caya]

Glad to hear your good news Pam!!

all the best
caya

[Delaney]

Pam - I wish you the very best with your treatment, you sound tough enough to take it.

Rich - Why should Pam not drink coffee, even decaf? I did a search here and coundnt find any reason to not drink coffee while on treatment except some people get bad diarrhoea , but Pam didnt seem to suffer from that. I am er- /pr- and love coffee (3 cups a day). Do I need to cut it out?

[imdavidson]

Pam,

I am also so glad you've had improvement. Did your doctor give you Benadryl as a pre-med before you got your chemo infusion last time? That's usually standard protocol but I was just wondering if you got enough.

[Rich66]

Delaney,
It's a potential ER+ issue..although there is reason to believe that some ER-/Her2 + cancers activate the ER pathway after Her therapies like Herceptin and Tykerb. So...until there's a simple way to know if/when tumor biology changes..might be prudent to skip things like Soy and Coffee that have estrogenic properties:



Coffee (reg& decaf) estrogenic:

http://her2support.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=41871&highlight=coffee+es trogen

J Nutr. 2009 Oct;139(10):1833-8. Epub 2009 Aug 26.
Trigonelline is a novel phytoestrogen in coffee beans.

Allred KF, Yackley KM, Vanamala J, Allred CD.
Department of Nutrition and Food Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Drinking coffee has been associated with the development of several endocrine-related cancers. The interpretation of these data has often been limited to the role that caffeine plays. Trigonelline (Trig), a niacin-related compound, is a natural constituent of coffee accounting for approximately 1% dry matter in roasted beans. Studies exploring the effects of this bioactive compound on mammalian cells are limited. The initial purpose of our studies was to determine whether Trig alters the actions of estradiol (E(2)), using proliferation of estrogen-dependent human breast cancer (MCF-7) cells as a model system. When cells were cotreated with suboptimal doses of E(2) (10 pmol/L) and Trig (100 pmol/L), an additive enhancement of MCF-7 growth was observed. In the absence of E(2), Trig stimulated MCF-7 cell proliferation in a dose-responsive manner and significantly enhanced cell growth at concentrations as low as 100 pmol/L. Cotreatment of MCF-7 cells with Trig and ICI 182,780, an estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist, inhibited Trig-induced cell proliferation. Trig treatment also induced activation of estrogen response element reporter assays in MCF-7 cells and increased expression of ER target genes (pS2, progesterone receptor, and cyclin D1) similar to E(2). While our data demonstrate that Trig activates the ER, competitive binding assays showed that Trig does not compete E(2) off of the ER at any concentration. This suggests that Trig is activating the ER through a separate mechanism. Collectively, these data demonstrate that Trig even at low concentrations stimulates MCF-7 cell growth and that this effect is mediated through ER, clearly identifying Trig as a novel phytoestrogen.