Re: Herceptin only
 

I finished Taxol/Herceptin August 7, 2012. Went on Herceptin only Aug 28, 2012. My fingernails started lifting up off the nail bed about two weeks after Taxol. They look awful now. I had to cut the dead parts off because mold was growing under the dead parts. Gross. I also have Neuropathy in both my fingertips and toes. My hair is just a few individual hairs here and there.

Re: Herceptin only
 

I never had any hair issues when I was on Herceptin for a year. I think your hair issues must be due to chemo. or radiation. I never had chemo. and only had mammosite radiation. Also - I had a very small tumor , stage one.

Re: Herceptin only
 

I didn't have radiation and was also stage one but they found precancerous tissue and masses in both breasts when I requested a bi-lateral. I had made up my mind that I did not want a repeat of cancer popping up later. My oncologist and my surgeon were both surprised and happy that I made the decision I did because of what they found afterward. My hair came out with the initial 4-5 chemo drugs. The weekly Taxol/Herceptin has kept it from growing back. The Taxol has caused my neuropathy and diarrhea problems and my fingernails coming off. My main questions are how long after Taxol does it take for everything to grow back. I'm so ready to be normal again!!!

Re: Herceptin only
 

I am starting Herceptin only....within a week or so. I am glad I found this thread. My Oncologist recommended Herceptin only due to the size (.5cm) and no lymph node involvement. I trust that she is making the right choice as I do not want this to reccur. I had a recurrence of DCIS in December after two years with a .5cm area of invasive that was ER+/PR+ and HER2+++. Very scary...however, I am so happy that it was taken out of me with the BMX in January. My Drs have acted quickly thank goodness as I have read how fast the HER2 cancer grows. Six months of waiting would have meant a much different story... Thanks for any other information you can give me on Herceptin. Best wishes to all of you.

Laurie

Re: Herceptin only
 

Hello my name is Lisa, I am 46 yrs old. I just underwent a double mastectomy. I am HER2 positive, IDC 1.5 cm, DCIS 10% of tumor, Stage 1, Grade 2, Paget's disease. No lymph nodes affected, distance from closest margin was 28 mm, estrogene & Progesterone less than 1% immunoreactive cells present.

I meet with an oncologist next week, and I am sure he will suggest chemo along with Herceptin. I would prefer to do Herceptin alone. Can you give me some feedback? Do you know anything about Herceptin now available in injection?

I found this lump in the beg of September so the last 10 weeks have been overwhelming, any feedback would be most helpful.

Re: Herceptin only
 

Hi Lisa,

Herre's a study on patients' preference:

Lancet Oncol. 2013 Sep;14(10):962-70. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70383-8. Epub 2013 Aug 19.
Preference for subcutaneous or intravenous administration of trastuzumab in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer (PrefHer): an open-label randomised study.
Pivot X, Gligorov J, Müller V, Barrett-Lee P, Verma S, Knoop A, Curigliano G, Semiglazov V, López-Vivanco G, Jenkins V, Scotto N, Osborne S, Fallowfield L; PrefHer Study Group.
Source
CHU Jean Minjoz, Besançon, France. xavier.pivot@univ-fcomte.fr
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Subcutaneous trastuzumab has shown non-inferior efficacy and a similar pharmacokinetic and safety profile when compared with intravenous trastuzumab in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer. We assessed patient preference for either subcutaneous or intravenous trastuzumab in the international, randomised PrefHer study.
METHODS:
Eligible patients were women aged 18 years or older with HER2-positive, histologically confirmed primary invasive breast adenocarcinoma, no evidence of residual, locally recurrent, or metastatic disease after completion of surgery and chemotherapy (neoadjuvant or adjuvant), an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1, and a baseline left-ventricular ejection fraction of 55% or more before the first dose of trastuzumab. Radiotherapy or hormone therapy was allowed. Patients were randomised (randomly permuted blocks of four) to receive four cycles of 600 mg fixed-dose subcutaneous adjuvant trastuzumab via a single-use injection device or hand-held syringe followed by four cycles of standard intravenous trastuzumab, or the reverse sequence. Randomisation was stratified by de-novo versus non-de-novo use of intravenous trastuzumab. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients indicating an overall preference for subcutaneous or intravenous trastuzumab, assessed by patient interview in the evaluable intention-to-treat (ITT) population (patients who completed both interviews and had at least one administration of both subcutaneous and intravenous trastuzumab). Data collection for PrefHer is ongoing. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01401166.
FINDINGS:
124 patients were randomly allocated to receive subcutaneous followed by intravenous trastuzumab, and 124 to receive the reverse sequence. 117 patients in the subcutaneous first group and 119 in the intravenous first group were included in the evaluable ITT population. Subcutaneous trastuzumab via the single-use injection device was preferred by 216 patients (91·5%, 95% CI 87·2-94·7; p<0·0001). Only 16 patients preferred intravenous trastuzumab (6·8%, 3·9-10·8), and four had no preference (1·7%, 0·5-4·3). Clinician-reported adverse events occurred in 141 of 242 (58%) patients during the pooled subcutaneous periods and 105 of 241 (44%) patients during the pooled intravenous periods; seven (3%) and five (2%) were grade 3, no patients had a grade 4 or 5 event. The most common grade 3 adverse event was influenza (two [0·8%] patients).
INTERPRETATION:
Patient preference and safety results from PrefHer, combined with the known non-inferior efficacy and pharmacokinetic and safety profile data, suggest that a fixed dose of 600 mg trastuzumab administered subcutaneously every 3 weeks is a validated, well tolerated treatment option for HER2-positive breast cancer, and is the preferred treatment of patients.

Laurie,

There's a thread for members to report their side effect of Herceptin http://her2support.org/vbulletin/sho...in+side+effect