Brain mets: Her2 paradigm
 

Did a brain scan yesterday and as I am awaiting results I wanted to know the stats on how many of us develop this evil..

Anyhow I found this full article that is very interesting and also talks about treatments, I thought I'd pass it on..


http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.or...full/13/6/1648

I get my result Wednesday along mamogram results. I had my 4 months ct scan results recently and all was clear ..which is great simply beautiful off course, so now Wednesday is the next big date for results I hope I continue feeling blessed and smiled upon..

Wow, fullofbeans, that was a very sobering article. Good to know, though. Here's to hoping new treatments which cross the BBB will be added in the adjuvant setting. Thanks for the post!

Let us know the results of your brain scan. Did you have a MRI or a CT scan?

Amelia

Thanks for the araticle. Very interesting one.

Paty

Thanks for the article. It ought be a "required reading" for us Her-2 gals. Hope your scan result is good.

The doctors office called me and all is fine brain MRI is clean and mamogram clean, I am feeling blessed releived and happy, thank you all for your kind words of support !

Wonderful news! Glad to hear of your blessing. Do something today to make it special.

So very happy to hear your "great" news.
Wishing you continued health with NED!

Also, many thanks for posting the very informative article. I especially enjoyed reading as more HER2
patients are surviving ...(isn't that nice to read) we
certainly need to push for additional research in the other sector...

All best Wishes to you! Enjoy your great news.
hugs,
Jean

So happy to hear the brain MRI is clear! Thanks so much for sharing the article. It has got me thinking about getting an MRI of the brain myself.

What they don't look for they will not find
 

Hi FOB!

It is good to hear from you, and to celebrate the good results with you. Thanks for bringing us up to date with the interesting article.

I long for the day when articles that outline the advantages of different treatments will not exclude a scientific rationale demonstrating the benefits from diet and exercise. Are there any studies about diet and exercise effects on HER2's in terms of brain mets, I wonder? Knowing you and your history, and considering your young age particularly, I do think your determined efforts to use diet and exercise to your advantage very likely are also making a very real difference in keeping you safe.

Many hugs from a contrarian,

A.A.

Full of Beans,

I am so glad to hear your good news.

Amelia

We love good news! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for posting the article. And I hope your scan turned out okay. Keep us posted.

Joan

Hey Beans!

Way to go and to stay in the NED column. Glad you keep needling them to continue getting the scans.

Yes, the article you posted has a lot of scary info for us HER2 +++ types. However, most of the data comes from the pre-Herceptin era and they admit that new studies are needed to reassess after the new treatments and surveillance schedules.

I particularly liked this:


Prognosis
Historically, the median survival of patients with breast cancer metastatic to brain has been poor, ranging from 3 to 6 months (51). Less than 20% of patients survived >1 year. Several groups have published retrospective studies describing improved survival from time of diagnosis of brain metastases diagnoses in patients with HER2-positive, compared with HER2-negative breast cancers, although the data are not entirely consistent (52–54). For example, O'Meara et al. describe a significantly improved likelihood of 1-year survival in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer treated with stereotactic radiosurgery

Guess I gambled with the Gamma Knife and won the lottery so far - surpassing that one-year number quoted above by a factor of 4 to date.

Thank you all for your support and kind words.

Yes it is a scary article but on this board we well know that median time doesn't often apply here. I remember reading that median time for liver mets was under 20 months..and well many of us have proved that wrong months and months over..

Glad to hear your good news, fullofbeans!

I am curious to know, since you don't say in your sig line, if you received any other chemo drugs besides Herceptin after your diagnosis in 2006? If so, do you remember what they were?

I just finished 4.5 treatments of Taxotere, Carboplatin and am still doing Herceptin every 3 weeks.

What - if you don't mind my asking, was the size of your tumor and do you remember the grade?

Did you have radiation too?

Sorry for all the questions. I am trying to learn :)
Diannes

Diannes you say that I I do tell "what chemo I had beside herceptine" Herceptine is not a chemo drug by the way and I have ALL the treatment described in my signature... it is all there the chemo were: 2 FEC+ 6 taxotere. Other chemo directly to liver isTACE (Google it if you don't know what these are)

It is good to learn and I always encourage people to have their treatments described in their signature so we can learn from one another.. maybe you should consider this for yourself, mine are all there. You asked me the grade it is there aswell..

I wish I would have stuck with the Gamma Knife which I will be having again soon. The stereotactic killed brain tumor but caused massive amounts of scar tissue to grow in me.

At this point, that is about the only advice I can offer you if it turns up.

If you go to the "Northwestern Hospital" website from Chicago, they do offer brief but pretty good info as a place to start and make a list of what else you would like to look up.

I prefer to concentrate on your positive results and hope that you never have to consider it.

(I am certainly not the expert at looking things up that many people on this site are - but I am alive).