If not a cure...why not a controller?

I hear ya. I remember telling my boyfriend during chemo that, 100 years from now, medical students will gape in horror when their instructors describe how they use to treat cancer. They'll look at it with the same disbelief as we do when we read how physicians in the Middle Ages used trepanation to cure headaches. Too bad we can't fast-forward to better treatments and a cure.

I have been told by someone who works with some of the leading researchers in the field of bc and actually funds research with some of her familys oown money- that the odds don't make up people who actually don't seek agressive treament, post masectomy radiation, and doesn't seperate her neg and her plus patiens. It also doesn't include zometa-which I know is just now in it's final round of trials but the buzz is they are really excited about the promise zometa holds. The new calculator with the "new odds" is hoping to come out in December/January timeframe but still wont include zometa.

Her positive cancer is agressive-the creation of Herception is AMAZING-as it cuts the risk by 50%. Thats a pretty good stat. I am not her pos but if I were I would be pretty thankful for the creation.

I am stage 3 and yes look forward to continued research and a "cure" but I will say I am thankful I am receiving 4th generation chemo, I am thankful that they can give me a test to see if I can metabolize tamoxifin and if I can't they no to give me a different drug, I am thankful for Zometa. I could care less about an actual test that will tell me what my reoccurence will be-what good will that do me? I just want the best treatment they can offer me and the rest is just not in my hands.

keep in mind that our treatments are part of the solution finding  process.  what works is recorded.

we are very important.

My onc said that even if we are not participating in clinical trials, that we 'are' statistics.. i am not exactly sure how that works.

i like the notion that we are in  '4th generation treatment'

i feel like an ipod. 

It seems that a lot of research is getting down to the molecular and DNA level -- finding those cancer genes and switching them off.  It's slow going, but I see the genetic research leading to a cure, the creation of individually customized treatments.  It will replace those hard chemos that blast cancer and good cells.  It might not be ready for some of us, I sure hope it is there for our daughters, granddaughters...

JudyO, hang in there, you just might need a big, fat piece of cheese to go with Konokats' cake.  Let's hope these newer therapies will emerge for us, too.  I feel confident they will be here for our daughters and granddaughters, but it is possible for us too.  The expert at Johns Hopkins says she plans to see this disease listed under polio for cured diseases and she is planning on it in her lifetime.  Hope that helps.  Maryiz

I'm sorry you're down Judy.  Fall rain gets me down.  Spring rain cheers me.  Crappy weather does not help with everything else we have to deal with.  We don't know what's around the corner.  Perhaps some scientists are cheering this very minute that they have found a new drug that will help us.  Who knows what we'll have next month, next year...  I'm impatient for something new too.  I do hope it comes quickly.

Let me preface this by saying that I'd like nothing more than a cure or a vaccine against breast cancer. However, my bc trip actually starts back around 1966 when my mother was diagnosed. All that was available to her was mastectomy and very clumsy radiation. By that I mean, they blasted her whole chest until it was raw and oozing. Had she survived breast cancer, she probably would have died young from a heart or lung condition, because I'm sure those organs were fried. As it was, she died at age 44 in 1969 from breast cancer.

I feel very fortunate to have chemotherapy. That wasn't available for my mother. They were only beginning to test it on people with Hodgkin's at that time. I feel fortunate that the radiation I had is more targeted and less damaging to surrounding tissue and organs. I elected to have a mastectomy, but I could have had a lumpectomy. That also wasn't available in the '60s. Back then, they also scraped you down to the bone when you had a mastectomy. And tamoxifen and the AI's...also not around for bc patients in the 1960s. Had these treatments been available 40 years ago, maybe my mother would have lived. Maybe not. While I think it would be great to have more, I'm grateful for the advances that have taken place in the last 40 years. Women back then hardly had a chance. I don't believe they even had mammography in 1966.

It seems that a lot of research right now is focusing on the cellular structure of cancer and genes. I think they are trying to understand it better...why it grows, how it grows, why it spreads, etc. Think how difficult it would be to fix your car's engine if you first don't understand how it works. I've heard several oncologists say that they feel this understanding, and thus a cure, is just around the corner. I certainly hope they're right.

Well,  I wish they (the oncology world) would all get on the same page as far as Zometa.  I'm stage 3 and my onc is still of the opinion that the side effects outweight the benefits for prevention of bone mets.  And I know my onc isn't the only one with this opinion.  Then WHY do I read that stage 1 ladies are getting it?

My Onc thinks there is no downside to it. She is not promising any benefit re:mets, but absolutely doesn't think it will do me any harm. At the very least I will have strong bones! I feel very fortunate to be getting it.

From what I have read, they think Zometa might get inside the bone marrow, and have an anti-tumor effect. There is thought that that is where the cancer cells "go" before they metastasize, and Zometa may prevent this from happening.

I agree with what Celtic says - we are certainly more fortunate that women in the 60's and 70's. Breast cancer is one of the most high profile and highly funded cancers out there - in that way we are far luckier than someone who gets Pancreatic, for example.

Knowing what I now know about Breast Cancer, it is such a complex disease - and as Athena points out, what works in mice or in a petri dish doesn't always translate to real life. 

Hi Ladies, When I graduated from Nursing school in 1979, I went straight into Oncology. My Grandmother had passed away from BC. @ 2 yrs into Oncology, my mom was my pt and  dxed with BC. Trust me we have come along way since that.

Breast cancer as vicious as it is is not ONE disease; we all have different genetic markers. and we all carry around 40,000 genes, and only a fraction of them are identified and their mechanism of action is known. that is why " targeted or molecular txs which have the abilility to " turn off "the identified abnormal genetic mutations, and kick back on the tumor suppressor genes. Prior to all this we used cytoxics ( which kill cells good and bad) and Hormone suppressors (Tamoxifen and AIs) only.

  I am in no way saying that it hasn't been ridiculously slow .  one woman dying from this disease is one too many.

Oh, Diane, I am so sorry to hear that. Yes, it would be great if they could give us a blood test that would indicate what would work for our particular needs. I feel like they just throw everything at us in the hopes that something might work.

I believe too!

Thanks, KerryMac! But the GOOD NEWS is that the GEMZAR seems to be doing the job for now and the s/e's aren't too bad!  Still, sure would be nice if there was more data to support the validity of "chemosensitivity testing" or another way of determining the right treatment for each person.