Dr. Rugo weighs in

[chrisy]

Hello friends,
Today I had my quarterly or so visit with HOPE (Dr. Hope Rugo at UCSF). She's one of the top breast oncologists in the country, and a remarkable woman as well as potential track star - in San Antonio she presented at 2 simultaneous symposiums, racing between the two.

I asked her about some of the topics that have been getting lots of airtime on the board, and here's what she told me. Note, this was her opinion for a specific patient (me), and of course everyone is different. I didn't ask her for citations, but she is a true researcher and datahound so I am confident her opinions are well grounded in data.

1. Herceptin weekly vs. 3 weeks: She really thought either was fine, there is data showing equal efficacy for either. In terms of toxicity, she also thought either was fine, although they do have a patient who has bad heart history and they give her weekly instead of 3 weekly.

2. Adding Tykerb to maintenance Herceptin while in remission - there is not enough data showing how these 2 agents work together, either in terms of slowing progression or in terms of toxicity. For me, as Herceptin is working well she would not add Tykerb but instead would save it for later.

3. Vaccine trials - She continues to have interest in this area despite the fact that after 25 years of research there is only one (the HPV) cancer vaccine approved! She spoke very favorably of the UW trials and told me that that would be a great thing for me to participate in (although with the usual caveat about I would be contributing to knowledge but there is no data that it would help me!)

4. Brain MRI - Yes, stay vigilant. Her2 likes to go there, but "it's so treatable" when caught early. That topic is sort of a "no brainer" around this board, but it was good to hear this from a top doc!

5. What else is coming up...remember, this was as relates to me (not ready to get off the Herceptin horse), she mentioned more upcoming trials of various agents in combination with Avastin but also commented that she is inundated with requests to do trials from people developing therapies targeting Her2 and the other pathways. There is SO MUCH research in this area, and much more coming in the next few years.

much love to all,
Chris