Redbook article on Gina Shaw

Hi,

I was reading Oct issue of Redbook and they have a continuing story on this young lady, Gina and her battle with b.c. Last year featured her tx with Neoadjuvant ACT then lumpectomy and rads. I recently read in the article that she is Her2 + so they called her in to have a year of Herceptin q.3 weeks. Does'nt this sound strange to anyone. I thought that Sloane-Kettering was one of the best and most forward thinking institutions around. I can't imagine why this 37 year old wasn't offered the poss. of a clinical trial w. Herceptin. I know I am kind of upset myself that my mom wasn't in the Taxol + Herceptin arm, but I am still worried docs are way behind on tx.

Anne

I went to Sloan for a treatment opinion when I needed to pick a medical oncologist. Great place and great doctor but went to a place close to my home (5 miles versus 70 miles) since the treatment was the same (dense dose 4 AC and 4 taxol). I was offered the Herceptin trial at both centers. The onc at Sloan (who is one of my second opinion oncs) told me the following:

1. you don't get dense dose in the trial. You got 4 AC every three weeks and then 4 taxol every 3 weeks (with or without Herceptin)

2. If you got on the arm with no Herceptin you were getting old technology chemo (as far as the dense dosing regimen) and dense dosing gave a 31% advantage.

3. If you got Herceptin but were part of the 50% (or so) people that don't respond to it, you were in the same situation as #2 above.

Therefore, only about 20% - 25% of the women in the trial MIGHT benefit from Herceptin and would it give benefit of over 31% that one gets with dense dosing. Therefore, I chose dense dosing (but thankfully was only 3.5 months out of chemo when the trial results came out in May so I am getting sequential Herceptin now.

The Fox Chase affliate location I go to said the exact same thing. So... it was not advocated by Sloan or Fox Chase over dense dosing.

Hope this helps

Best regards,

Becky

Since she had neoadjuvant chemo, she may not have known her her2 status until after her chemo was already done. Or perhaps she chose to do chemo first in hopes of preserving her breast.

Just some thoughts,
Kim

I am currently being treated at Sloan and there are many wonderful things about the place. However, they will not go 'off-label' and until the studies were released regarding the benefit of Herceptin for early-stage bc, they were not treating early-stage bc with Herceptin, except in trial situations. Sloan is very by-the-book-- sometimes I feel like I'm being treated by scientists rather than doctors. All this aside, I love the place.