[Becky]

Dear Tonya

I do not know anything about the radiation with the heat treatment after it. However, in general, I do know that adding chemo to radiation intensifies the radiation treatment.

I have several bc friends here from my cancer center who had local recurrences. Since they had masectomy and did not receive radiation, rads ended up being a big part of the treatment plan (both of these women I know had their tumor recur on the masectomy scar-line). Both had more surgery then rads but the medical onc and the rad onc added Xeloda to the plan while undergoing rads (neither was Her2+ but if they were, they probably should have had Herceptin too).

If I were you, I would discuss at least remaining on Herceptin during rads as this has a synergistic effect and then really, really talk to both doctors (rad onc and medical onc) on how much burning you could expect with just rads versus rads w/heat vs rads w/heat plus staying on Gemzar with Herceptin.

I know that you won't have just rads but for some women, it causes burning and rads with chemo causes more and I would guess rads with heat causes more burning than rads alone so would rads w/heat plus chemo put you into an area where you might not be able to finish treatment? That needs to be taken into consideration as you must finish the rads w/heat as it sounds like it should do the job and staying on the Herceptin throughout shouldn't affect the burn factor.

You need to explore that burn factor in order to assess whether to stay on the Gemzar or continue Gemzar afterwards. I hope this helps. Maybe others who have had a local recurrence and had rads can respond and help you with additional questions.