Newly diagnosed – in a quandry about treatment.

Monica,

I know how disappointed you must feel but remember just because you qualify for a trial, it does not guarantee you will be selected to receive the herceptin. I entered the trial you are talking about in hopes of receiving herceptin, but since a computer randomly selects who is placed in which arm of the trial, I was selected to receive the gold standard; 4 A/C, 4 Taxol. I was very disappointed but decided the herceptin would be there for me later if I needed it. Later is here now and I am happy to say that after 11 weeks of receiving taxol/carboplatin/herceptin the mets to my liver are almost totally gone. The other thing to consider is that Adriamycin (the A in AC) is toxic to your heart and part of this trial is to determine if adding herceptin with Adriamycin will be even more harmful to your heart. As far as the clinical trials for the vaccine, you must be between initial diagnosis (completed treatment without herceptin) and prior to recurrance. Your best bet is to take the gold standard treatment or find someone who will give you herceptin off label. Keep in mind most insurance companies will not pay for herceptin if off label because at this point it is only approved for metastatic breast cancer and the drug is very expensive. Keep the faith there are lots of options and lots of long term survivors.