Kidney ultrasound before herceptin?

[*_Christine MH_*]

I am thirteen months out of having chemo for early HER2+ BC. So far, no signs of it coming back. My oncologist has agreed to herceptin, which is not that easy to get in the UK for stage II breast cancer (even if you pay for it yourself) but wanted to run some tests first. The CT scan results last month showed no signs of cancer in the likely places, but there was something, probably a cyst, in my pancreas that he was going to monitor.

I had not heard from him for a few weeks, when I got a call from his secretary that I am to have an ultrasound on my kidneys on Thursday. I doublechecked with her that it was my kidneys and not my pancreas. This has me concerned because my oncologist is not the kind to run lots of tests. I was wondering if anyone knew of a reason why someone getting herceptin would need a kidney ultrasound.

[*_jeff_*]

Hi Christine,

The only thing that came to my mind might be irrelevant: are you also going on a bisphosphonate for bone strength? Something like Fosamax or Aredia or Zometa? Because some oncs are wary of how these affect the kidneys...

Just a thought...

Jeff

[*_Christine MH_*]

That's an interesting thought, Jeff, but I am on no medication right now being ER-/PR-. I am 41 and before the breast cancer was in excellent health. I don't have any symptoms of anything.

[StephN]

This IS a puzzle.
You would not be going on a heavy biphosphanate or Zometa unless you were stage IV in most cases.

Besides they would use a standard blood test to test for your Creatinine level - this is an important kidney function that should be in the normal range.

Have you had your kidney functions analyzed along with your other blood work recently? If so ask what the numbers were and determine that they are in normal range.

Perhaps your doctor had someone else do a second reading of your scan to check for further anomylies. Ask him about this. Perhaps he was on vacation and now is back on the job!

This is not a regular routine for Herceptin, I assure you.

[*_Christine MH_*]

It turned out that they weren't sure that the thing that showed up on my pancreas was really on/in my pancreas and thought that it might be on my kidney instead. That turned out to be the case, which is good news. It was very intense, since I was scared to death that something bad was going to turn up.