Herceptin and Tykerb: synergistic effect if they failed separately????

Carol W · 05-23-2009, 01:27 PM

I haven’t posted before, but have received many good ideas from reading this wonderful website.

As you can see from the history below, I’ve tried several treatments which all helped for several months and then stopped working.

My oncologist said in March that I my next treatment could be neratinib, pertuzumab, or the combination of lapatinib and Herceptin. However, there are no trials at University of California San Francisco (when I receive treatment) for the first two. When I saw my oncologist a few days ago, she said that the combination of Lapatinib and Herceptin probably won’t work because they previously stopped working when taken separately. Now I’m totally confused and don’t know what to do. I would much rather try targeted treatment than chemo.

I haven’t found any posts from anyone in this situation but hope that someone can give me some ideas. What I want to know is how likely is the combination of Herceptin and Tykerb to help if they previously stopped working when taken separately?

Carol_____________________________________________ ____
· 1/99, original diagnosis of breast cancer, HER2 positive, ER/PR negative; surgery (mastectomy and TRAM flap reconstruction, no lymph nodes removed) no chemotherapy or radiation
· 9/01, malignant lymph node in axilla removed
· 2/03, another enlarged lymph node found in axilla
· 4/03, per CT scan, 4 small lesions in lungs, 1 in pelvis; started Herceptin and Zometa (Zometa has continued with all treatment changes)
· 9/03, per CT scan, all lesions gone except lymph nodes
· 4/6/06, started Xeloda (continued Herceptin)
· 3/1/07, started Avastin and lapatinib clinical trial (1500 mg of lapatinib/day and 10 mg/kg of bevacizumab every 2 weeks)
· 2/13/08, started Trastuzumab-DM1 clinical trial. (Because of liver and platelet side effects, the dose was reduced first and then the treatment interval was increased from 3 weeks to 4 weeks)
· 12/6/08, started lapatinib dose escalation clinical trial (2 week cycle: day 1: 5500 mg in AM, 2500 mg in PM; days 2 to 5: 2750 mg in AM, 2500 in PM; days 6 to 14, nothing)
· The lung and bone mets have not returned, but the lymph nodes become larger or more numerous as each treatment stops working.