|
Rose,
I have to agree with Jeff. Although the area of herceptin as a radiosensitizer requires much more study, there are small, mainly in vitro studies, that suggest it is. The cross-link below will take you to one such study conducted by M.D. Anderson.
If most studies, albeit small ones, suggest herceptin is a radiosensitizer, I'm not sure what issue your doctor is raising. As Jeff suggested, the ability of a drug to make cancer more radiosensitive prior to or during radiation treatment is a good thing.
In addition, Herceptin generally does not penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB), so I'm not sure why it is an issue in the first place with respect to stereotactic surgery on the brain. Some patients believe that herceptin may penetrate the BBB in some quantity after whole brain radiation as general radiation is know to cause a breach of the BBB. Such belief is purely anecdotal.
|