Beating Breast Cancer | Symptoms And Breast Cancer Treatment

Herceptin - New Herceptin Information

New Herceptin Information from the HERA study

Herceptin is going to form a big part of Marjory's treatment program. New research data from a huge international trial of Herceptin in early breast cancer has been released in the last few days. This shows that women treated with Herceptin had their risk of cancer recurrence reduced by about 35% and their risk of death reduced by about the same amount.

Please read my other recent posts about herceptin treatment and about new breast cancer drugs when you're taking this information into account. Remember that herceptin only works in women whose breast cancer is susceptible to it - so called HER2 positive breast cancer. About twenty five percent of women with breast cancer have a tumour that will respond to herceptin treatment.

The HERA trial is one of the largest breast cancer research studies ever done. It looked at more than 5000 women with HER2 positive breast cancer around the world.

The HERA study will report results again in the coming months about whether taking Herceptin for two years is any better than taking it for one year. The study is still going on so that information is not available yet.

Concern about herceptin causing damage to the heart has also been eased by the HERA study results. Only 0.6% of women who took herceptin showed any significant signs of heart problems.

These results provide yet more good news for those women whose breast cancer can respond to herceptin. New guidelines for treatment with herceptin in the UK are expected soon.

Gordon

This site now has several herceptin treatment articles - you should check them out for more information relating to herceptin's place in breast cancer treatment

Labels: breast-cancer, breast-cancer-risk, herceptin, living-with-cancer

posted by Marjory @ 8:16 AM

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