"Because I think the era of chemotherapy has hit the wall," he said.

[R.B.]

Hmmmm.

RB



http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/060605/x060522.html

[tousled1]

I didn't like the following comment from Dr. Mak. Is he questioning the effectivesness of Herceptin????

"the so-called wonder drug Herceptin is the first major advance in breast cancer care in the last six decades"

[cherylynnie]

NO, he is saying that it is the best thing that has come along in a very long time to help treat this awful disease.

[Esther]

I agree with this thinking. I think the new way of treating cancer will be with targeted therapies that block the cancer activity in the way that Herceptin does.

Chemo blasts away everything, good and bad, the new therapies are targeting ways to block just the cancer.

[R.B.]

Another article same thread


RB

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...606090357/1040


ABSTRACT


Doctors who treat women with breast cancer are glimpsing the possibility of a vastly different future. After years of adding more and more to the regimen -- more drugs, shorter intervals between chemotherapy sessions, higher doses, longer periods of taking harsh drugs -- they are now wondering whether many women could skip chemotherapy.

If the new ideas are validated by large studies, like two that are just beginning, the treatment of breast cancer would markedly change. Today, national guidelines call for giving chemotherapy to nearly every one of the 200,000 women whose illness is diagnosed as breast cancer each year. In the new approach, chemotherapy would be mostly for the 30 percent of women whose cancers are not fueled by estrogen.