HERA results show Herceptin results for early stage bc hold up

[Hopeful]

Article: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/217194.php

Abstract: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(11)70033-X/abstract

Hopeful

[Becky]

I is always nice to read these results as I received Herceptin sequentially and not with the chemo. Still.... no 2 years of Herceptin results!! How long will we have to wait to see that. I am really interested in the 1yr versus 2 yr data as I am sure everyone else is.

Thanks for posting this.

[Lani]

Sorry to be seeing these results through gray rather than rose colored glasses, but doesn't that mean that the reduction in recurrence ie, advantage of treatment w herceptin was only half as much at 4 yrs than at two years ie, 24% vs 48% ie, recurrence was perhaps being delayed rather than prevented or did they somehow include the data of those initially treated without herceptin and crossed over in the rate of recurrence of those treated without herceptin (would not make sense)

Will try to read the original article.

[Unregistered]

Thanks Lani! :-(

[Lani]

Haven't found the original article through pubmed yet.

[Hopeful]

Lani,

The second link in my post takes you to the abstract for the article, which was published in the Lancet. You need a subcription to the Lancet or to purchase the article to be able to read it in its entirerty.

Hopeful

[chicagoetc]

I think maybe the cross over was included which definitely muddies the water re benefits...at least as far as I can tell from this:

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/cancer/articles/2011/02/25/herceptin-may-boost-long-term-survival-after-aggressive-breast-cancer

[Lani]

Chicago etc--your article and the previous one only address that the reason there was no improvement in OVERALL SURVIVAL may perhaps be largely attributed to the difficulty of accounting for the crossover patients in the calculations

They do not seem to speculate as to whether that could have affected the PFS (progression free survival) statistics.

PubMed usually does not add articles until Tuesday.

Will keep checking.

[Hopeful]

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=126357

"Overall survival was no better for patients treated with the biologic therapy than for patients who received chemotherapy alone. But researchers attribute this to the fact that women who originally did not take the drug were allowed to cross over into the active-treatment part of the study based on the strength of the early findings."

Hopeful

[Lani]

Yes, again it is overall survival stats they are talking about regarding whether the crossover confused the statistics.

Haven't seen any of them discuss whether the DFS stats would also be confused and how