herception with clean nodes?

Hi:

Herceptin has been around in trials for quite a few years and over the past several years, some docs have given it to their patients as an "off label" use, even if only microcells showed up in the Sentinel Node tests. I suppose the docs had that much confidence in it's potential results.

If you've caught the network news in the past week or two, you may have heard about the high praise Herceptin has been getting from the medical community. Many of the trials are now concluded and it's being touted as quite the thing to take for early bc, even without node involvement. Some of the news shows fail to present any down side at all, re side effects, etc.. On one show I saw, the network news lead-in actually said this drug was a virtual "cure" for bc! Excuse me??? Hello???

I did not take Herceptin but know women who have and a few experienced mets while taking the drug.
Of course, more than a few women have experience recurrence and/or mets while taking Tamoxifen also. What does this mean?

Keep in mind that drugs work differently on all of us because we're all different and some aspects of our cancers, which may not even yet be tested, can be quite different and so we have different results even though we may be on the very same regimen of drug/treatment. To my knowledge, there is no pharmaceutical magic bullet...no fail proof drug, so take the info with a grain of salt, so to speak, until you feel confident that your questions have been answered and figure out how Herceptin may be of value and/or apply at all in your particular case. Be cautious before jumping into something you're not sure about. Also, keep in mind the amount of revenue a year of ANY drug is going to generate and multiply that several times when the drug is for cancer: the profits for the drug manufacturer, your doctor and the facility where you'd have the drug administered, as well as the pharmacy that prepares the drug, can all be phenomenal. As much as we hate to think our medical professionals capable of suggesting something just for the revenue, think again. It can and does happen. It's unfortunate but cancer is a huge, huge industry and the drugs we take are hardly benign. Rather, heavy hitting, dangerous substances which can exact a price upon our bodies, so naturally, it's wise to be careful and cautious.

It's YOUR body and YOU must be completely comfortable with your decisions and your reasons for those decisions. Do your homework. Research the drug thoroughly, including the latest trial-end results. Get at least one 2nd opinion, talk to other women and then decide. (If you type Herceptin into google.com you'll find a lot of starting places for research) Best wishes.

Love, light and laughter,
Ink

24242 said:

Usually hercepton is given to those who have a positive test for the tumor to be sensative to hormonal therapy, not whether you have positive nodes or not. This is a hormonal therapy that works on some cancers is my understanding. There are new studies coming out all the time and my caution is that if you are sensative to side effects the less is better. There was never any talk of me going on it even though I was negative to the sensativity but had 11 out of 21 posititve nodes. Just wanted you to know what I experienced.
Be good to yourself,
Tara

Herceptin is only given to her2+ cancer. It makes no difference if it is er/pr pos or neg, nor does it matter if you have positive nodes. What I don't know is if it has full approval yet for insurance to pay in early stages. It is very expensive. I was in the trial for herceptin and received a years worth. My her2 is at 3+, and so far so good. (it will be 3 yrs since diagnosis in Dec) I know it's most likely not the cure all that it is being promoted, and it's still very early in the trials. But it looks encouraging, and I will do what ever it takes to help my chances. I say if you're her2+, talk to your dr and to your insurance co and take it from there. Good luck