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Old 05-27-2004, 06:15 AM   #1
Merridith from Canada
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Hi Vicki:

I was diagnosed in Oct 2003 with Paget's Disease DCIS and infiltrating ductal carcinoma and 8 negative nodes; had surgery Dec. 10 2003 skin-sparing mastectomy of left breast and immediate reconstruction. I had one tumour of 1.7 cm.

My treatment was 4 rounds of A/c followed by 4 rounds of taxol. (Dose dense - every 2 weeks). I just completed my chemo 2 weeks ago. Dose dense has a slightly better outcome than doing it every 3 weeks.

I am not familiar with your carbo-taxol combo as I wasn't given it. I have spoken to another person in the chemo room who was HER + and was taking carbo-taxol but her cancer status was more advanced than ours. Why she was being given that I don't know as we both had the same onc. I assumed at the time that she was getting it because she was more advanced than I but after seeing that you are getting it I suspect that there was another reason.

Everything that I have read about herceptin seems to indicate that it is the closest thing to a silver bullet for our disease. You are right to be very agressive as it seems that there are a lot of people on this site that started out with neg nodes and tumours smaller than 1 cm that later ended up with mets. My onc tells me that it kills/controles 50% of metastatic cancer. I know in the States that many oncs have such hope in the drug that they are giving it off-protocol to patients. This option is not available to canadians as we have socialized medicine.

It seems reasonable to hope that it would have a good effect on early-stage cancer. There are concerns however that your body would gain immunity to herceptin and therefore wouldn't be available to you later on if you should need it. You should also be aware that (if your survival stats are the same as mind) that there is a 70% chance that you don't need any further treatment at all... so if you went on herceptin mainenance there is a 70% chance that it won't do anything for you at all at the same time there is a risk of heart complications.

One thing to keep in mind is that people who are EXPERIENCING cancer either in treatment or who have mets are much more likely to be on this board than people who are symptom free.

I have read that the cancer center that I am going to is tops in my country (they recently did a blurb on the news hour about it) and my onc tells me that it is one of the top cancer centers in the world.

At any rate I decided to take the herceptin trial in hopes that I get it. If the trial proves beneficial I will be given the herceptin fee of charge even if I'm in the control group. I chose this route because I feel that a 30% chance of getting mets is very high so I'd take my chances with the herceptin

Hope this helps.
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