HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - her2+ breast cancer not as good as disrupting Blood-Brain Barrier as triple negative,

Lani · 01-24-2010, 12:54 PM

sorry I was travelling and so unable to access the web and answer your questions promptly. Luckily Becky and especially Laurel stepped in and interpreted the article(and even explained in more detail why, in the case of Laurel)correctly.

Nevertheless, it does seem that those with her2+ brain mets DO BENEFIT BY having/continuing herceptin as part of their regimes. I have posted many papers supporting the continuation in the face of brain mets. Whether the suppression of mets outside the CNS prevents them from sending some kind of signal that encourages the growth of the brain mets or for some other reason herceptin remains helpful in the face of brain mets. This paper seems to show it is NOT because herceptin eventually gets throught the blood-brain barrier as the brain mets somehow make it less effective, but this IS AS AN AGGREGATE.

It may be that some her2+bc but not others DO make the BBB more permeable(able to be passed through) but that this % of her2+ bc is not enough of the whole of her2+ bc to make the average her2+ bc brain met
cause BBB disruption as often as triple negative or basal bc brain mets do.

Thanks, Becky and Laurel!!

01-24-2010, 12:54 PM	#7
Lani Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,783	Re: her2+ breast cancer not as good as disrupting Blood-Brain Barrier as triple negat sorry I was travelling and so unable to access the web and answer your questions promptly. Luckily Becky and especially Laurel stepped in and interpreted the article(and even explained in more detail why, in the case of Laurel)correctly. Nevertheless, it does seem that those with her2+ brain mets DO BENEFIT BY having/continuing herceptin as part of their regimes. I have posted many papers supporting the continuation in the face of brain mets. Whether the suppression of mets outside the CNS prevents them from sending some kind of signal that encourages the growth of the brain mets or for some other reason herceptin remains helpful in the face of brain mets. This paper seems to show it is NOT because herceptin eventually gets throught the blood-brain barrier as the brain mets somehow make it less effective, but this IS AS AN AGGREGATE. It may be that some her2+bc but not others DO make the BBB more permeable(able to be passed through) but that this % of her2+ bc is not enough of the whole of her2+ bc to make the average her2+ bc brain met cause BBB disruption as often as triple negative or basal bc brain mets do. Thanks, Becky and Laurel!!