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Hi Cynthia,
It is definitely true that there is no proof yet that herceptin more than six month's after chemo helps. However, I am a bit puzzled by your oncologist's assertation that it could actually do more harm than good.
The reason that there is no proof is that nobody has looked at this matter yet. For obvious reasons, the studies that showed that early herceptin was effective in preventing recurrence selected patients who were still in treatment. So no proof means that it has not been proven, not that it has been disproven.
I was diagnosed October 2003, 6 * FEC 75, surgery, 8/19 nodes, Her2+++, taxotere * 4, radiotherapy. I finished treatment in August 2004. A few days ago, I went to my oncologist to ask him whether he thought I would benefit from herceptin and he said yes, which really surprised me, since I was more than six months out of treatment. By the way, this put him in a really awkward position because I am being treated through the National Health Service in the UK, which hasn't authorized its use yet, and I can just about manage to pay for it privately, but he didn't know that, so I was really putting him on the spot. He had no incentive at all to tell me that herceptin would benefit me, just the opposite.
He's on the HERA trial committee and seems to have a good sense of what is going on in the world of oncology. There are some risks with herceptin, but on the HERA trial the rate of heart trouble was something like 1 in 200 for the group getting herceptin for a year.
I would think with CAF that herceptin would be a good idea because the group that benefited the most on the HERA trial was the anthracycline only group. They didn't get the Walter Read vaccine, of course, but my understanding was that the Walter Read vaccine trial has been opened up to people who have taken herceptin.
Best wishes,
Christine
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