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We can all agree that patients should be able to choose and genuinely be provided with the option that makes the most sense to them, given that at this point it is not possible to know what treatment will work for any given patient.
In particular, it is important to remember that at one time patients were not allowed to have the choice of trastuzumab at all, and it took persistent effort to make that choice a reality. Women were limited to choosing chemotherapy that stood a less than even chance of providing any benefit at all to them, whether or not they felt trastuzumab might be helpful in treating HER2 positive cancer.
It is certainly important for those who feel that adding chemotherapy is worthwhile to be able to have that choice. THEY do have that choice already. Given that there is no certainty that chemo will match any particular patient's tumor, it is those who are willing to do trastuzumab but not chemotherapy and who continue to be unable to have equal access to that regimen who are not being treated rationally.
The initial post of this thread emphasizes solely how important the option to use chemo along with trastuzumab is for these patients. It provides no option whatsoever for determining whether or not the addition of chemotherapy is genuinely necessary for small tumors.
Fighting for the choice of treatment is what is important here, not the criteria used for continuing to limit treatment for HER2 positive breast cancer patients to regimens that include chemotherapy without investigating the genuine possibility that trastuzumab alone may be the best answer for them.
AlaskaAngel
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