More good news on brain mets

heblaj01 · 12-19-2006, 05:23 PM

Johana,
Thanks for clarifying this important fact that you had WBR.Based on the post by Lani (http://www.her2support.org/vbulletin...ad.php?t=26300) which shows that Herceptin can in some circumstances cross the blood brain barrier, the likelyhood is increasing that Herceptin is responsible for your brain mets disappearing due to the possible action of WBR in weakening the barrier.
If that is the case you may have made a contribution toward proving the feasability of a new way for Herceptin to control brain mets.
In any case congratulations for your successfull outcome!

heblaj01 · 12-22-2006, 10:55 AM

Johana,

I mentioned in a previous reply that I did not know if Femara was able to cross the blood brain barrier. Well, I checked with Novartis,the drug manufacturer, & they told me that it does penetrate the brain & spreads as easily as in other parts of the body.
They are aware of a few cases where it appeared to be beneficial against brain cancer but there is no clinical data to prove it scientifically.
But who cares if it works for you in addition to the other drugs in your regimen!

Swimgirl · 12-22-2006, 11:22 AM

Hi,
I am not completely new to this board but I haven't posted in a long time. I wanted to share my good news in the hopes that it helps someone else. I have metastases in my brain and spinal cord and am Her2+. My spinal cord (not bones) metastasis has been with me since 2002. It was resected then irradiated. It grew back and I had stereotactic radiation to the spot in June of 2004 and Feb. 2006. I then developed brain mets (24 of them) last winter. I had whole brain radiation from Feb-March 2006. I initially had a good result. 4 brain mets were left at the 3 month follow up MRI. But new ones appeared at the 6 month follow up and the spinal cord tumor had grown some more. I started lapatinib and Xeloda through the lapaptinib compassionate use trial in September. When I had follow up MRIs of my brain and spinal cord this December, all spots in the brain had either shrunk or disappeared completely and the spinal cord tumor shrunk for the first time since 2004. I was so happy! I thought I was running out of options.

I wanted to share this so that the info might help someone else who is Her2+ with brain mets.

Happy holidays to all!

Elizabeth

Johanna Johannsdottir · 12-22-2006, 03:24 PM

Hi girls,

Thank you Heblaj01 for the information and congratulations to Swimgirl. Good news are incouraging for us all.

Best regards,

Jóhanna