Let's look at the data here -
# 1- hey, we all know that Her 2neu+ is a more aggresive cancer, I'm not surprised that after 5 years the Her2+ women had a higher rate of recurrence - DFS at 70% versus 95% of Her2 negative - but again -
#2 - Were these women (presumably stage 1 or 2, since they were node-negative) on Herceptin? chemo/Herceptin? That is very important to know, because the HERA trials with early stagers, both node+ and node-, had overall survival at 92.4% and DFS at 80.6% after 2 years. (the only data they had, still waiting for longer stats). An article on breastcancer.org from Genetch Inc. dated 2006-11-17 - "The studies have shown that 87 percent of women treated with Herceptin and chemo were disease-free after three-and-a-half years, compared with 71 percent of women treated with chemo alone, the company said. (nothing about nodes)
# 4 - Another comment from Dr. Sandra M. Swain in an article at
www.patternsofcare.com/2006/1/adjuvant-trastuzumab.asp - "In the HERA trial, approximately 30 percent of the patients had node-negative disease. The HERA trial was very strongly positive for efficacy with sequential trastuzumab in the patients with node-negative disease."
# 3 - I wonder if they have information on regular axillary node dissections. SLN biopsy can miss up to 10% of cancer cells, according to what I have researched.
# 4 - I wish they had information on MRM - I am assuming "primary tumour resection" means a lumpectomy.
I think I have raised a few issues here. Like we are always saying, we are rewriting the stats every day - you'll see, the 5 year rates in 5 years from now will be great, because we'll all have been on Herceptin (and possibly Tykerb).
Have a great weekend everyone -
Caya
Robin P...
Hybrid Mode
