Breast cancer drug Herceptin has been approved in Europe for use with hormonal therapy for postmenopausal patients with HER2 and hormone receptor positive metastatic disease.Herceptin, made by Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG, is already approved in Europe for early and metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.
This new approval is based on data from an international late stage clinical trial showing the combination of Herceptin with hormonal therapy doubled the median progression-free survival time.
My port -- that thing that pops up from under the skin on my collarbone, that thing that by default stays in place because I can't decide whether or not to remove it -- is now officially in maintenance mode, now that my treatment for breast cancer is complete. My last Herceptin infusion was on June 28. And my first port flush was today. For as long as I keep my port -- and for as long as it has no real use -- I must have it flushed one time each month. So today, I strolled into the cancer infusion center where I've spent many hours and this time spent just a few minutes -- enough time for my usual chemo nurse to puncture the skin on top of my port, push through a rather large needle, and inject a dose of blood thinner into the lines of the port to keep clots away. The whole procedure was harmless, painless, no big deal at all. And I will return one month from today for a repeat performance.
