tumor markers and herceptin

[mickey]

As soon as I start chemo, my cancer says,"chemo, we're out of here!!!!". In April, I went off chemo onto herceptin only. I was NED exept the brain. My CA tumor marker went down each month. In June it was at 27 , but my three month CAT showed two lymph node mets showed up. My question is, does it look like herceptin alone will never work for me and no point in that and also will tumor markers never be a useful tool since it showed low when there was something brewing?
Mickey

[athena453]

Mickey, for what it's worth...I am in the middle of chemo and my CA 27-29 is 174. I had a PET scan clean in June, just before I started chemo. I am hoping that in my case, tumor markers mean nothing.

[Lisa]

Tumor markers are very accurate for some people and not so accurate for others. Mine have always been a good sign that something was up. Except when I got brain mets. They kept getting lower. Made no sense. Later, they started climbing, scans showed nothing, but a second set of scan a couple of months later showed they were very accurate (also lymph nodes). A good friend, Mary Crawford, had "too numerous to count brain mets," and her scans never climbed.

So either the brain makes a difference, and/or markers are more sensitive than scans and indicate trouble before we can "see" it. I'm sure your doc will continue looking at scans as just one piece of the puzzle.

Yes, for 1/3 of us, Herceptin alone doesn't do the trick. But that wouldn't stop me from using it. Who knows where I'd be if I DIDN'T use it!

Love and light,

Lisa

[Gina]

ok, my favorite topic,

Tumor markers are not reliable for all her-2 cases. That said, you will never know if they are useful to you, at least at some level, until you chart them on a regular basis. First of all, you can NOT GO BY THE CA 27/29 or CA -15 by itself. You need to watch this number and compare it to what the serum her-2 is actually doing. One of the biggest fallacies out there in my opinion, is the belief that a CA 27/29 less than 38 is OK...in my experience, this has not been the case at all as the CA 27/29 is downstream from the serum her-2 which means that unless your CA 27/29 is around 10 to 15, your serum her-2 is often out of range. In my case, I have to keep my CA 27/29 around 10, just to bring my serum her-2 down to normal, around 12 on the 0 to 15 scale, which is not great as I have a very aggressive form of her-2, but is about the best that I can do. If what ever treatment you are taking is only just barely keeping your CA 27/29 around the 30 range...odds are that your serum her-2 is MUCH higher and is what is or what certainly could potentially cause you grief. Get your markers regularly, chart them, and see what you can learn about your own bio-chemistry...this is NOT rocket science folks...if you can plot an x and y on a graph..smile...you can do this...wink...Best to all, Gina