Less Herceptin?

[donocco]

I found an article in the lancet that states what the other article stated. It was quite odd what the findings were. They gave about 1700 her2 positive women 2 years Herceptin and another 1700 or so one years Herceptin and the 10 year survival rate got both groups were about 69%.

Here is the oddball things. They gave about 1690 women no Herceptin for the study. Assuming they were Her 2 postitve this seems unethical. Their 10 year survival rate was 63%. It seems not only does one year = two years but no Herceptin - both for all intents and purposes. Unless I read something wrong this experiment indicates that Herceptin rherapy offers no real long term survival benefit. This doesnt make sense. Ill reread it more carefully

[donocco]

I printed it out to re-read it. They did start out with 3 groups of Her 2 positive women and they were planning to give one year Herceptin to one group, 2 years to another group and no Hercepotin to the 3rd. After one year there was a 46% less relapse rate in the Herceptin treated pts so all were treated with herceptin eventually. At first it seemed unethical. In this experiment with 5100 patients over 11 years the one year use 10 year survival rate was equal to the 2 year Herceptin use 10 tear survival rate. This may become the new norm considering the lesser chance of Herceptin related cardiac side effects. Only future experiments will tell for sure.