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Old 05-09-2010, 08:46 AM   #1
Lani
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 4,783
at least they are looking (what took them so long)--chromosomal,genetic study of 200

her2+ tumors

If you are brave, click on the link and then click on the provisional pdf

Bottom line--her2+ tumors (particularly the er+ ones) are very heterogeneous

But we had figured that out already (see previous post on her2+er+ behaving differently)

http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/12/3/R25

accordiing to this her2+ er+ tumors can be classified into any of the 5 major subtypes of breast cancer and certainly are NOT all luminal Bs.

Why is this important? When trying to figure out how each subtype acts (what one's prognosis might be) and what responses may be to treatment if you look at them altogether you may be missing the forest for the trees. eg., before Dr. Slamon looked only at tumors her2+ by fish only, he thought herceptin had failed as he could not pick up the remarkable improvement in a few patients when he looked at all patients treated including those who had the target and those who did not (and therefore were not helped)
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