Chemo Not Needed for Most Early Breast Cancer: TAILORx

Jean · 10-22-2018, 03:00 PM

Crystald, to respond to your question. If we knew the answer as why some patients respond to herception and some do not we would be seeing more cures. Each person and body is unique. chemistry and DNA etc. But we do know this, Herceptin has proven to save those with Her2 positive breast cancer. Not 100% cure. We are not there, unfortunately.

I will say this again and again to all, when I met with Dr. Salmon he said (and this was over 10 years ago. Anyone with Her2 positive breast cancer should have Her2.
There are those who do not want to have the chemo portion of the cocktail.
But, what we have now is Herceptin with chemo.

We just do not have all the answers to the puzzle. We do know what we know thus far. Herceptin is advisable for HER2 positive.

Lien · 11-01-2018, 08:39 AM

As I live in the Netherlands, things are done differently here. I was borderline Her2 positive and Herceptin was only available for metastatic disease at the time. I had radiotherapy & 5 years of endocrine therapy. In 3 months it will be 15 years since my diagnosis. So no chemo, no recurrence so far.

There are no guarantees with this disease, but with every year that passes I'm more hopeful. According to Dutch statistics, in three years time I'll be just as likely to develop breast cancer as any other woman. I think it's a 1 in 8 chance. Not great, but a lot better than it used to be for the past 14 years.

Jacqueline

Lucy · 11-01-2018, 01:14 PM

It's one of those things where if I didn't get chemo and it came back I would believe it was because I refused chemo - same for herceptin. Chemo is not fun but I'd rather get a drug and not have needed it than to have passed on it and find out (or if it came back wonder if) it would've made the difference in whether I had a recurrence or not. Kind of a better safe than sorry thing for me.