I’ve completed 3 rounds of FEC-T and am due to start 3 rounds of Taxotere tomorrow. I have had these pre surgery to see what happens to my tumour.
After much agruments within my hospital, I was told yesterday that I can have Herceptin and Taxotere at the same time - as the NICE guidelines state that this is okay pre -op.
However, my oncologist is away for three weeks and my chemo nurses are unable to give me much info on the long term and short term effect s have having the drugs TOGETHER… I was against the MMR for my boys and so to flood my system with drugs without muhc info is very worrying.
Another local hospital do them on different days (3 days apart) but as my oncoligist isn’t here, he can’t authorise that.
Can anyone help me or tell me of their experiences…
Thanks
Hi queen of leon
My understanding is that evidence shows that combining Herceptin with Taxotere reduces the chances of a breast cancer recurrence, as opposed to having Herceptin alone. I don’t think it’s comparable to MMR jab - many chemotherapy drugs often work better synergistically when they are combined. This particular combination also improves survival for women with metastatic disease than Hercetptin alone. I had 8 cycles of Taxotere and Herceptin (and Carboplatin)and had an 80% reduction in size of my liver tumours & 50% for lungs.
The first cycle of Herceptin is usually given separately because there is a chance of it causing an allergic reaction in a small number of patients - they usually keep you in the hospital for 4 or 5 hours after the first Herceptin infusion incase you react. If you were to have another chemotherapy drug during the same session and experienced a reaction, then it may be difficult to tell which drug has caused it. I had my first Herceptin on the second cycle of Taxotere.
I don’t really understand why NICE guidelines would be different for patients having neo-adjuvant therapy - is there a registrar or someone else in the oncology unit to speak to?