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Becky · 06-17-2006, 11:54 AM

Hey Angel,

Its been a long time since we have written. I absolutely agree that Her2 cancers do not take a long time to grow. I was diagnosed 7 months after a clean mammogram (that didn't even have calcifications) with a 1.9 cm tumor. So, I was not surprised about its aggressive pathology. I tested negative for BRCA 1 & 2. My mom (and 3 of her sisters) had bc but the "plain old type". All diagnosed in their early 70's (one sister was 80). Small mammo detected types, node negative and highly ER/PR positive but not Her2. (I was 45 at diagnosis - your poll's most popular age range). My dad's mom and her sister died from ovarian cancer. They were both in their early sixties but I don't know anything else after that as it was over 30 yrs ago.

At ASCO, I went to all the BRCA presentations and "heritary" influence papers. BRCA 1 bc tends to be triple negative and BRCA 2 type tends to be luminal B (hormone positive but not highly positive - ie: ER 30% PR50% vs in the 70% - 95% range for Luminal A types).

Her2 is not common AT ALL in BRCA mediated cancer but being p53 positive (highly positive) is. For the record, p53 is the tumor suppressor gene.

Now for women like you and me - who have strong family ties to bc but are not BRCA 1 & 2, there is always that there may be a BRCA 3, 4, 5 etc that haven't been discovered but they also were talking about low penetrance genes (CHEK 1 and others). It was kind of a "straw that breaks the camel's back" scenario. Lots of genes come into play and together get damaged and then there is the straw that breaks the camels back. However, I did talk to one of these presenters who told me that, in the case of my mom and her sisters (no bc before them and out of 17 female cousins from my mom's sisters and brothers, I am the only one to get bc and I am in the youngest 20%) that my mom and her sisters may have an early environmental exposure that caused their bc (for example, all the ones that got bc worked in the steel mills as teenagers (another sister did too but she died of a heart attack at age 62 and since they all got it at age 70 - who knows about her and what would have happened).

I think Her2 is a spontaneous mutation that occurs but that other factors may come into play to help it along. Especially that many of us get it right when our hormones are erratic (menopause) or during or right after pregnancy (another hormone wacky time). It may be a hyper estrogen response or something (even for those that are ER negative). Just thinking out loud here.

Kind regards

Becky

06-17-2006, 11:54 AM	#3
Becky Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Stockton, NJ Posts: 4,179	Hey Angel, Its been a long time since we have written. I absolutely agree that Her2 cancers do not take a long time to grow. I was diagnosed 7 months after a clean mammogram (that didn't even have calcifications) with a 1.9 cm tumor. So, I was not surprised about its aggressive pathology. I tested negative for BRCA 1 & 2. My mom (and 3 of her sisters) had bc but the "plain old type". All diagnosed in their early 70's (one sister was 80). Small mammo detected types, node negative and highly ER/PR positive but not Her2. (I was 45 at diagnosis - your poll's most popular age range). My dad's mom and her sister died from ovarian cancer. They were both in their early sixties but I don't know anything else after that as it was over 30 yrs ago. At ASCO, I went to all the BRCA presentations and "heritary" influence papers. BRCA 1 bc tends to be triple negative and BRCA 2 type tends to be luminal B (hormone positive but not highly positive - ie: ER 30% PR50% vs in the 70% - 95% range for Luminal A types). Her2 is not common AT ALL in BRCA mediated cancer but being p53 positive (highly positive) is. For the record, p53 is the tumor suppressor gene. Now for women like you and me - who have strong family ties to bc but are not BRCA 1 & 2, there is always that there may be a BRCA 3, 4, 5 etc that haven't been discovered but they also were talking about low penetrance genes (CHEK 1 and others). It was kind of a "straw that breaks the camel's back" scenario. Lots of genes come into play and together get damaged and then there is the straw that breaks the camels back. However, I did talk to one of these presenters who told me that, in the case of my mom and her sisters (no bc before them and out of 17 female cousins from my mom's sisters and brothers, I am the only one to get bc and I am in the youngest 20%) that my mom and her sisters may have an early environmental exposure that caused their bc (for example, all the ones that got bc worked in the steel mills as teenagers (another sister did too but she died of a heart attack at age 62 and since they all got it at age 70 - who knows about her and what would have happened). I think Her2 is a spontaneous mutation that occurs but that other factors may come into play to help it along. Especially that many of us get it right when our hormones are erratic (menopause) or during or right after pregnancy (another hormone wacky time). It may be a hyper estrogen response or something (even for those that are ER negative). Just thinking out loud here. Kind regards Becky Last edited by Becky; 06-17-2006 at 01:42 PM..