Her neutral

Mooleen

What does HER neutral mean? My path report after a mastectomy said ER+ PR+ HER neut. Is it specific to the tissue sampling or is it something genetic? Thanks for your help. I am learning so much from this forum.

SpecialK

Hi Mooleen - Your pathology report should show three things:  1) your estrogen receptor status - which is ER+, 2) your progesterone receptor status - which is PR+, and 3) your Her2neu status.  It seems that your Her2neu status is missing, as HER neut, does not mean neutral, and needs to show a + or -.  Sometimes additional testing needs to be done by IHC (immunohistochemistry testing) or FISH (flourescence in situ hybridization testing) to determine whether your Her2neu is positive or negative.  This testing can take longer and may not appear on your pathology report, and be reported subsequently.  Her2neu refers to an overexpression of the Her2 gene, if the tumor overexpresses it is positive, if not, negative.  Here is a link that helps explain:

http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/diagnosis/her2.jsp

ma111

It takes 2 weeks for the HER testing to be complete.

LouLou40

Mooleen has DCIS, is Her2 Always tested for DCIS as it has no bearing on treatment?

SpecialK

loulou - I think it depends on what your surgeon requests from the pathologist.  If you look at people's sig lines on these boards some have a DCIS dx but show a pos or neg for Her2.  It seemed to me that since there was a notation on her post-op path report that they did test for it, and the results just were not back yet.

ma111

Just want to add one more point. If you are HER+ there is a medication called Herceptin that they will put you on. Very little side effects to it.

Ginger48

My HER2 initially came back "unequivical" but then they did the FISH test and it was negative. It does affect your treatment plan and whether you need Herceptin so check with your dr.