why her2neu tumors are able to metastasize more readily than her2- and scheme2 defeat

[Lani]

They have found that, although on different chromosomes, the worst her2+ tumors have coamplification of uPA, a substance which breaksdown the extracellular matrix which glues the body together in order to facilitate invasion of the breast cancer cells deeply and widely.

The degree of concordance is remarkable. They are developing an anti-uPA
drug and propose giving herceptin and uPA simultaneously.

The fascinating part of this article is that, in the original they discuss that it is now possible to do her2 and uPA testing on INDIVIDUAL TUMOR CELLS--either from a touch prep of the original tumor (they cut the tumor in half and touch it on a piece of "waxpaper" which on average produces 100 cells for examination, or they isolate Circulating tumor cells and can do the test for individual gene amplifications on just a single cell!

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Nov 1; [Epub ahead of print] Links
uPAR and HER-2 gene status in individual breast cancer cells from blood and tissues.

Meng S,
Tripathy D,et al
Cancer Immunobiology Center, Departments of Internal Medicine, Pathology, and Surgery, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 6000 Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75390;
paper to follow...