Her2 positives more than 5 yrs out who never had trastuzumab

AlaskaAngel

Okay, as someone almost 10 years out who never had trastuzumab and still NED.... how many of us are there?

AlaskaAngel

Hindsfeet

Alaska Angel, you did have IMRT rads, tamoxifen, not long, but you did have it. Is it possible that the rads or tamoxifen helped? Do you think your cancer was early enough where it hadn't invaded elsewhere in the body and for that reason you didn't need herceptin? I'm hoping thats the case for me but won't know until after the surgery and more testing is done.

I know imposiitve was dx a few years back and was her2+++. She didn't take herceptin or chemo ...also stage 1, and she hasn't had a recurrence of breast cancer. From what I understand, she had skin cancer before bc, and had a recurrence of skin cancer that she is now treating with alternative medcine. She's alive and well without hercepting or chemo.

AlaskaAngel

Hi evebarry,

I had chemo (CAFx6), IMRT rads, and some tamoxifen and any of those might have helped. But a large percentage of early stage bc patients wouldn't need any treatment other than surgery, so maybe none of them helped. I was high-risk because I was HER2+++ and grade 3.

Doing trastuzumab can make a difference too.  I chose not to do it at the time, and was lucky that I didn't need it.  (At that time, less was known about other effects of trastuzumab.)

If I had it to do over I wouldn't do chemotherapy and would do trastuzumab, but that is just a personal choice in hindsight. While that is not an option offered by many oncs, it would be if THEY did the time with chemo personally themselves.  Unless trials are done to prove that the addition of chemotherapy to trastuzumab is better than just trastuzumab, it makes no sense to to add chemotherapy to it.

AlaskaAngel

DebbieB

When I was dx'd 10 years ago, herceptin was only given to those who were Stage 4.  So I only had the 4 rounds of AC chemo.  Back then there was very little info available and no statistics because they were just starting to routinely test for HER+.  

Trisha-Anne

I have a friend who had IDC (but I don't know how big) no lymph node involvement.  Did FEC x3 T x3 and 5 years of arimidex.  She was HER + but was not offered Herceptin. She has just finished the arimidex and now has mets to liver and lung.

As you can imagine - she was devastated. 

Trish