Has anyone with MS or other neurologic diseases noted improvement while on herceptin?

[Lani]

After a lecture by Dr. Ronald Levy, who invented Ritixumab the monoclonal antibody against lymphoma that preceeded herceptin, I heard him talk about
an anecdotal report that herceptin improved a patient's neurological disease, he was not certain whether it was MS or not.

There have been several news reports this spring of Genentech reporting negative results of one or several of their monoclonal antibodies against MS, none of which were herceptin.

PS I understand that it is difficult to connect improvement in MS with drug treatment in some cases as it can be a disease which gets better and worse on its own, making it difficult to correlate improvement with any particular treatment

Thanks in advance to all who respond!

[Bill]

Thanks, Lani. food for thought

[Becca]

Lani, I have systemic lupus. While first on taxol, carbo, and herceptin for my recurrence my onco said he thought the lupus would give me no problems. He was right-- I had no flares. I then had a 4 month vacation from chemo with just herceptin and do not remember having lupus problems (but it was summer and I always feel better in warmer weather.) I can not remember if I had flares while still on herceptin, but trying navelbine and gemzar. I did have lots of problems while on Tykerb and Xeloda. Right now I am not on Herceptin, but ixempra and zometa. I daily deal with stiff joints, pain, etc. My onco says it is difficult to know whether the lupus or the chemo is causing the pain. I think the herceptin did help my lupus symptoms (or perhaps the combo did). I know MS and lupus are different diseases, yet they are closely related. Hope this helps.

[Lani]

It does seem that cancer and autoimmune diseases have similarities--and yet there can be marked differences--sometimes cancer finds a way to hide from the immune system by hiding in sheep's clothing pretending to be "self" whereas autoimmune disease IS self, but sometimes the body thinks it isn't.

Interestingly they think have found a familial type of her2+ breast cancer which involves the gene FOXP3 which is necessary for a component of the immune system called Tregulatory cells, which are diminished in autoimmune diseases.

The puzzle still needs a lot of work!

[Monica]

Lani,
It is hard for me to tell whether herceptin helped my MS symptoms since my MS only started a year before my breast cancer diagnosis. I can say that my MS got significantly worse when I tried tamoxifen and improved when I stopped. In general, my MS symptoms have steadily diminished over the past four years. Interestingly, relatively new research has shown that cytoxan (which was part of my treatment) is effective against MS.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/543719

So perhaps the combination of the drugs was helpful.

Best,
Monica