Reply #4: If effective , it helps about 1/3 of breast cancer patients

[OzarkDem]

About 1/3 of women dx with breast cancer test positive for overexpression of the Her2-neu oncogene. The current treatment, Herceptin, helps many of these women, but can also damage heart muscle. Herceptin is a monoclonal antibody, not chemotherapy, but as stated, can still have damaging side effects.

Herceptin alone is not always effective, so it would be helpful to have another theapy with less toxic side effects.

The downside of these new targeted therapies is they are often very, very expensive. Herceptin costs about $80,000 for 1 year of treatment. In patients w/ mets, it controls the growth of tumors, but doesn't usually get rid of them, so patients take the drug for many years.

Its positive news, but isn't a magic bullet for all breast cancer.

Even better would be to find what causes breast cancer and how to prevent anyone from getting it!