paper on whether or not to continue herceptin once "herceptin resistance" occurs

[Lani]

see my comments on the article under Tom's post "I guess it's our turn now"

I thought it should be posted separately. Most oncologists seem to continue Herceptin, just adding things to it. THIS MAY OR MAY NOT END UP BEING HELPFUL, BUT AT LEAST THEY ARE THINKING ABOUT IT AND STUDYING IT...

OPEN ACCESS: Outcome of Patients with HER2-Positive Advanced Breast Cancer Progressing During Trastuzumab-Based Therapy [The Oncologist; Subscribe; Sample]
We sought to describe patterns of treatment and clinical outcome in patients with HER2-positive advanced breast cancer progressing on trastuzumab-based therapy. One hundred eighty-four consecutive HER2-positive advanced breast cancer patients received trastuzumab-based therapy between September 1999 and September 2004. Patients were followed up until death or May 2005. For patients progressing on trastuzumab-based therapy, we calculated the response rate (RR) to the first post-progression treatment, overall survival (OS) from the first administration of trastuzumab, time to second progression (TT-SP), and post-progression survival (PPS), according to treatment. At the time of this analysis, 132 patients had progressed on trastuzumab-based therapy, and 89 had died. Of the progressing patients, 21 experienced rapid progression and could not receive additional anticancer treatments;40 patients continued trastuzumab either alone (12 patients with isolated central nervous system progression), with chemotherapy (23 patients), or with endocrine therapy (5 patients); and 71 stopped trastuzumab and received chemotherapy (61 patients) or endocrine therapy (10 patients) as the first post-progression treatment. Excluding patients with rapid progression, clinical outcomes were similar whether trastuzumab was continued or not, in terms of RR (18% and 27%, respectively), OS (31 and 30 months, respectively), TT-SP (6 and 7 months, respectively), and PPS (21 and 19 months, respectively). The clinical outcome of patients with HER2-positive advanced breast cancer progressing during trastuzumab-based therapy might not be influenced by continuing trastuzumab. The optimal therapeutic strategy in this setting of patients needs evaluation in randomized trials.

AS IT IS OPEN ACCESS EVERYONE CAN READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE IF THEY WISH

[R.B.]

Interesting article.

Could you post the link to the full article please.

Many thanks.

RB

[Lani]

http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.o...tract/11/4/318
then click on full article
good luck!

[R.B.]

Your link worked perfectly. You have mastered posting links, which I am sure compared with most of the work you have put into understanding this material was a "breeze". 10/10.

Thanks

RB