My Wife Rachel Was Just Diagnosed With HER-2+ Breast Cancer (Please Help ...)

[bmorr7]

Hi everyone,

Some good news - Rachel went back in last Friday for another operation to get clear margins. There was DCIS at the lateral margin on the right mastectomy so Dr. Chang (UCLA) went back in and clean that margin out and found no abnormal cells. So she has cleared us to move onto the next stage of Rachel's care - chemo.

The plan is now to start chemo Monday July 22 and our oncologist is recommending TCH which sounds like the protocol used by most of the oncologists at UCLA including Dr. Slamon. I've seen that other recommend PH (including Dr. Edith Perez at Mayo) as a similar protocol with less side effects but our team here says TCH is the first choice. Rachel would get six rounds of TCH with the Herceptin continuing for a full year.

We're also expecting to hear about the BRCA results tomorrow ... fingers crossed.

Wondering what others think about the chemo regimens and whether TCH is the best first option. Our oncologist says it's safer than the older regimen (that including Adriamycin) but still very effective.

So much to digest ...

Ben