Highly Curable

Never have two words sounded so good! This was from Dr. Christopher Perkins who is head of California Oncology, where Britt will be receiving her Chemo, Herceptin and hormonal treatments. Although he is based in Fresno, he wanted to come to the Turlock office yesterday to meet with Britt and I and review our case. His specialty is Breast Cancer and he was very interested in Britt's case. For what seems like the first time in this whole ordeal we were able to actually review the entire case from diagnosis to this point, and it was really helpful. He also laid out for us our plan of treatment from start (Chemo Therapy) to finish (Hormone Therapy). Although we had been very scared over the past few days about the upgrading to Stage III and the fact the cancer seemed very aggressive, he pointed out that when they label Stage III as having a 50% recurrence rate, that is a somewhat misleading number, in that it encompasses all cases, without regards to treatments.

Britt's case is unique and "highly curable" because her cancer is Estrogen Receptive, and has Her2 positive. This occurs in only about 20% of breast cancer cases, and actually gives us two paths of treatments. If you are not very medically inclined, I am going to try and explain these two points as best I can. Estrogen produced naturally in the body has been linked to Breast Cancer in the body, and several studies have showed that the blocking of the Estrogen can stop new formation of tumors, and the spread of the disease. The second factor the presence of the Her2 gene, is both good and bad news. The bad news is that this is what makes the cancer aggressive. The good news is that the drug Herceptin is for use with this. Herceptin responds to the presence of the Her2 gene in a cancer cell, binding itself to it, and essentially smothering it, as well as attracting white blood cells to the cancer cells to kill them. The combination of these two therapies, mean the chance for no relapse in the next 5 years is higher than 85%.

So the new treatment plan is as follows, Chemo Therapy for the next 18 weeks, with Herceptin given concurrently for a year. Surgery will follow chemo, and radiation will follow the surgery, and finally hormone treatments (with the drug Tamoxifan) for 5 years.

We are truly on a path now, and that is of course very rewarding. Although there are of course no guarantees, we feel good about our odds. Britt and I are very thankful to all of our friends and family who whether near or far have been there to provide support, whether it is to send a e-mail, card, enter the Race for the Cure, drop off a meal, or any of the other myriad expressions of support we have received it has been remarkable to realize the support we have out there.

We'll keep you posted.

Brian