[Lani]

it sounds like Faslodex aka Fulvestrant

Dr. Slamon, the "father" of herceptin has given talks at conferences where he states that he believes it is the best antihormonal for her2 + patients, as they tend to be "relatively resistant" to both tamoxifen and AIs.

The work showing increased growth of her2+ tumors was initially done in mice I believe and involved giving tamoxifen without giving herceptin.

I don't like to post these as many her2+ er+s who were treated before herceptin became widely available, may worry if they were treated with tamoxifen without herceptin, but the studies were done on mice. Neoadjuvant studies on humans have raised some questions as well, however.

Also "relatively resistant" does not mean they do not work, just that they work less well than on her2-s.

Only recently have trial results started to become available (many more still not available) of treatments combining herceptin and antihormonals.

Tamoxifen works by blocking the Estrogen receptor so estrogen cannot get to it and start the cascade of reactions that stimulates cell growth, etc

AIs work by blocking the synthesis of estrogen so there is almost none to get to the receptor, similarly blocking its initiation of that cascade of reactions

Faslodex works by making the estrogen receptors fall off every cell in the body permanently--once you stop taking it the new cells would have estrogen receptors, but some cells in your body replace themselves only once in a blue moon. Nevertheless those on faslodex complain of very few side effects.

I have asked the drug company representatives and poster presenters at the San Antonio bc conference over 3 years if they think it crosses the blood brain barrier and noone seems to know for sure and noone is too interested in doing the research.

Sorry if I told you more than you wanted to know or if I scared anyone.

This is really an area where they are only speculating because they don't know with certainty yet.

Faslodex has almost only been used for stage 4s-I have only heard of one trial of adjuvant use, and not seen that one published yet (but still looking)

Hope this helped