Hi,
I was just wondering from bits I have read in and among posts on here - can your cancer status change?
eg. can you go from being ++ for PR and ER to triple negative, from triple negative to ++ HER, ++HER to all three etc etc.
If so, how, why and how would you know?
O, x
All I know about this one Ostrich is that I was told after the biopsy mine was extremely slow growing and as I’d been on hrt for 10yrs it was probably homone positive One month later after my op I found out that it was so aggressive it was off the richter scale.and hormone neg.My consultant did say that it was probably caused by the hrt and started out as hormonal.
Josie x
Hi Ostrich
My Her status was rechecked recently, as the onc said cancers can sometimes ‘evolve’. I don’t think this often happens, tho’ - but I could be wrong.
Just bumping this up to see if anyone else had any thoughts/knowledge. Thanks for your replies so far, x
ok, just had a letter through the post, telling me my cancer is:
ER strongly positive;
PR negative;
C-erb B2 negative
what the heck does all that mean??I know the er is oestrogen positive and i’m on arimidex for that (though apparantly, i might come off that while i’m on chemo…is that usual??)
what do the other two things mean though, and does this mean my cancer is worse than i thought it was???
Hi Narnia
ER as you say is oestrogen positive. PR means it is progesterone negative ( another hormone). Are you sure the B2 negative didn’t say H2 negative? That would be negative for the Her2 protein so not receptive to the Herceptin drug.
Hi Narnia,
I posted on bcpals about this but it is worth repeating here because there is some confusion as to what c-erb b2 is. This is the same thing as her2. You ask if this means your cancer is worse than you thought but you don’t say how bad you thought it was :). I think it is probably better not to be her2 positive cos that would mean your ca would be more aggressive. Also because you are ER positive it means there are a range of hormonal drugs that can help in addition to the chemo drugs.
dawnhc
Hi Narnia,
Could I suggest that you email the Ask the Nurse service with this query, I think they may be able to explain this in more detail to you.
Link for ATN: breastcancercare.org.uk/content.php?page_id=119
Kind regards,
Jo, Facilitator
I wanted to follow up on something dawnhc said. Her2 positive cancers are more agressive, but if you then have herceptin your chances of a recurrence are the same as someone who is not her2 positive. I think I have also read that her2 positive cancers generally respond well to chemo
.
So the only disadvantage of being her2 positive that I can see is having to continue treatment for longer.
Herceptin is proving itself to be a great drug for some her2 women with primary and metastatic breast cancer. I know women who are her2+ who had a very poor prognosis at primary diagnosis 4/5 years ago who are now NED. I also know women with mets on their 70th and 80th dose of herceptin, also well with disaese controlled.
BUT herceptin does not work on all her2 tumours and sadly I also know women who have died very soon after herceptin has failed for them.
In general terms her2+ cancers, are all things being equal more aggressive than her2- cancers, but any kind of breast cancer may turn out to be aggressive…it all depends on the cancer and the response to treatment.
Jane
My cancer was strongly ER positive (7/8) but PR negative and Her - . I remember my onc saying it would have been better if it has also been PR positive. There is a lot written about ER status but very little about PR status. Does anyone know the significance of PR status?
Trish
My onc said HER2 cancers are slightly more aggressive.
I have recently had a re-currence of breast cancer and although my first two tumours were Her2neg, my new one is Her2+ so yes status can change. My Oncologist said this only happens in 5% of cases and he has told me this is a good thing because Herceptin and Lapintab (think that how you spell it) are very good at controlling the cancer.
Linda