Is tumor responding?

[KirisMum]

Kiri was randomized in the clinical trial at Dana-Farber into the arm that receives lapatinib (tykerb) and Taxol in the neoadjuvant setting. There are three arms: one with herceptin, lapatinib and taxol, one with herceptin and taxol, and one with lapatinib and taxol. She will get herceptin later, after her surgery, for a year.

Thanks for that analogy about the snowball - that's really helpful! :-)

Edited to add:

I just reread this portion of your analogy: if the heat is also coming from the inside, the inside will melt and make holes but it won't appear that the size of the snowball is any smaller at first. This is really interesting because apparently, as a small molecule, lapatinib enters the HER2+ cells and attacks them from the inside, rather than externally, as Herceptin does. So that might account for the softening rather than size reduction. Just my hypothesis. ;-)