does anyone with her2+ breast cancer have a mother who also has her2+ breast cancer?

Lani · 08-07-2006, 05:29 PM

The other day I saw a post from someone whose mother had her2- breast cancer. I know her2 testing is relatively recent (and not performed equally well in all locations --and not performed at all in some countries), but thought this was the best place to seek this information.

Anyone?

Sheila · 08-07-2006, 06:44 PM

Lani
No...I have Her2, my mother did not, ....nor did my cousin.

Becky · 08-08-2006, 03:30 PM

Lani

You may have seen my reference to my mother this week. My mom is Her2 negative (it was tested then since it was 2000 - I guess they just did it). She was 95% ER and 90% PR. (I am only 50% ER and PR negative but, of course, Her 2 +++). My mom has 2 sisters with BC who were diagnosed in the same age group as my mom was (70+ yrs old) and they are doing well. However, in 1990, their youngest sister was diagnosed at age 48 (I was 45) and had 19 lymph nodes involved with a tumor that was less than an inch long. Since she passed away in 1993, nobody knows anything except an aunt who cared for her. My aunt was not hormone positive as she was not given tamoxifen. Therefore, she was either Her2+ or triple negative (and they probably didn't test for Her2 in 1990 or 1993 because I don't even know when it was discovered). She had chemo and lost her hair but nobody knows what she was given.

Thanks for all the info you post Lani.

Kind regards

Becky

karenann · 08-08-2006, 03:40 PM

I don't know if my mom was Her2 positive or not. Going into her surgery, they thought it was DCIS but found a small amout of invasive and never tested it (don't know if they tested tumors in 1996). My aunt was triple negative and I don't know about the other 6 aunts/cousins who have had bc.

Karen

Lani · 08-09-2006, 12:41 PM

I did a year of graduate work in medical genetics eons ago (around 1975, I think)

The articles on breast cancer genetics beyond BRCA1/2 are extremely technical and haven't really shown me any pattern to aid my understanding of the big picture.

This "snapshot" of the "little picture" from all of you piques my curiosity and I will search the literature to see if there is more on this.

I doubt it, as many of you commented, her2 testing is so new and not uniformly performed. Perhaps we can get some researcher interested...

Thanks again,
Lani