Mixed Her2 status, pos and neg?

ReadingMama

My original biopsy came back as Her2 negative.  However, I had to have a second biopsy of an enlarged node and at that time they took another biopsy of the bc.  This biopsy came back Her2 postive, so I took Herceptin for a year.  To me this means the tumor was mixed, some cells have her2 positive and some negative.  Is this possible?

Then I had a local recurrance, while still on Herceptin and both the biopsy and the final tumor path showed Her 2 negative, which I was happy about because I took that to mean that Herceptin killed all the Her 2 + cells.  But does this now make me triple negative on the second cancer?

One last question, I see some signatures that say Her2+++, is there any signifance of more than 1 + sign or any actual guidelines?

ma111

When breast cancer travels beyond the original site, (nodes), it can change to HER2+ cells. It is not a mixed tumor.

The local recurrence is not considered a second cancer. Second cancer is defined as originating at a different site. Yours grew back at the original site so is considered a recurrence.

Her2 is the amount of protein on the cells. The more + the more the protein was seen on the cells.

Hopefully others will soon chime in on this one.

ma111

Bump

Moderators

Dear ReadingMama, 

On the main breastcancer.org site there is a lot of information on Her2 Status.

Please check it out because it includes information about the available tests for Her2, and some of the research results on Her2 status.

We hope this helps

The Mods

ReadingMama

Thanks Cindy, all my path reports had the Her2 testing by FISH, so that explains why I never saw the +++, but that definately clears it up!

ma111

That report might tell you that it was three positive not in the format of ++.