Older chemo regimes: FEC reduces 10-year death risk by 48% over CMF for her2-positive

[Christine MH-UK]

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_33672.html

Canadian researchers looked at 639 preserved specimens from pre-menopausal women and found that it may be primarily her2 positive women who benefit from anthracycline containing regimes. 'In the study, the CEF regimen reduced the 10-year risk of death for patients with HER2-positive cancers by 48 percent, compared to similar patients placed on another regimen, called CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and fluorouracil).'

Although herceptin is, of course, even better than FEC alone, I think that this is important news for patients in poorer countries where herceptin is simply unobtainable and reason why everyone breast cancer patient should have their her2 status checked.

[chrislmelb]

Yahoo, Christine

[AlaskaAngel]

I agree, as people who benefit from being in technologically more accessible countries we really do need to keep a sharp focus on what will be most meaningful for people in other circumstances.

As a chemophobic patient, I must admit that perhaps getting blasted with Adriamycin might possibly have been helpful to me -- although having been left out of consideration entirely in the traztuzumab clinical trials, I don't have much faith in the basis for the treatment I received as a HER2+++.

A.A.

[RobinP]

Sorry, whoops posted in wrong place-deleted.

[AlaskaAngel]

I'm going to respectfully disagree here. I think the issue here IS "which chemo is best for HER2's", and not whether traztuzumab is the best answer, because traztuzumab IS more expensive.

I wonder what the average cost of first-line chemo (with all of the other drugs given with it -- antiemetics, G-CSF, etc.) is, though, in comparison.

A.A.

[RobinP]

Hi AA, how are you? Thank you for bringing to my attention that discrepency in my post. I apologize for posting in the wrong place. I deleted and moved that post to the proper place in my recent post in the her2 message boards.

[AlaskaAngel]

Hi Robin! So far, so good here (although a day doesn't go by that I don't debate with myself the question of whether to take traztuzumab). Maybe I will end up being a personal "clinical trial" for HER2's, since those who design clinical trials think we aren't worth the trouble!

Thanks for the explanation. Your posts are always so meaningful and helpful that I thought maybe I just didn't "get" it.

Appreciatively,

A.A.

[RobinP]

Yep, I know what you mean about the lame clinical trials for late adjuvant Herceptin. I haven't heard of anything either. It's kind of disappointing because as more and more time passes it seems less likely that there will be any such trials, keeping many in the dark and bewildered. Let us know if you do your own trial.Wishing you the best.