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lauren (and everyone),
Wow--this board is so active isn't it? That's an amazing thing. But it can also be a confusing thing. The main confusion that I see here almost always comes from the differences in treatment options facing women in the adjuvant setting versus women facing metastatic disease. One important thing I try to remember is that women with metastatic disease started this board and are it's lifeblood. Other boards deal with this issue by separating out postings for recurrence vs.primary.
I remember the comment about AC and its effectiveness and I'm pretty sure it came from someone who was given it in the metastatic setting. AC (+taxotere or taxol for node positive) women is, without a doubt, currently the standard of care, as they say, for primary breast cancer in the US. In fact, when the dose dense trial results (using AC+taxol) were released at San Antonio in December 2002 there was quite a bit of "chatter" in the months following that the benefit reported in that huge trial might indeed have been mostly due to strong responses from her2+ women.
Might the paradigm shift in coming years? No doubt. There are already trials testing out taxotere+carboplatin and herceptin for her2+ women in the adjuvant setting. Those trials might change adjuvant approaches for her2+ women. But they haven't yet.
And I can't believe I'm about to say this--given that I'm someone who loves to cuss and am trying to bring my kids up to know how and when to cuss properly and productively--but maybe we should try to keep even abbreviated cusses off the board?
All the best,
Jeff
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