I listened to a TNBC webinar during lunch today that was very informative. It was a medical update presented by a doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City, and it reaffirmed some of the treatment decisions that I have made and also talked about some clinical trials/additional treatments that may become available for TNBC in the future. One particular focus of the webinar was the addition of carboplain to current chemo protocol and that clinical trials found that carbo increased the likelihood of a complete response by about 25%. That is a pretty significant figure and it makes me glad that I have added carboplatin to my regimen.
She also recommended seeking out non-chemo clinical trials for those who do not achieve a complete response at surgery so I will keep that in the back of my mind just in case. I like listening to these types of presentations, and I find some comfort in the fact that TNBC is heavily researched these days.
Other types of breast cancer have what are called targeted therapies to help fight the disease. These targeted therapies are able to take what fuels the tumor and help shut it down. Estrogen positive breast cancer, for example, has a drug called tamoxifen (among a few others) for treatment, and HER2 (a protein) positive breast cancer can be treated with a drug called herceptin. TNBC has nothing comparable to tamoxifen or herceptin yet because researchers still aren't clear as to what exactly fuels triple negative breast cancer. It's a bit of mystery though there have been some studies that suggest that researchers are honing in on certain things. Chemo, surgery, and radiation are all that we have for now.
It was pretty rainy and gross in my fair city today. It would have been a perfect day to settle in with some movies and naps, but real life responsibilities took priority. My show continues to go well, and today was the last big day. There is a very small meeting tomorrow that will require some attention, but that is easy enough for the people there to manage. I had to prepare a report for my boss to present to our board of directors at their quarterly meeting this afternoon, and I hope that the report was well-received.
My brother Ben is coming into town tomorrow night for the weekend, and I am so excited to see him. We have not seen him since Christmas when things were a little bit hectic so it will be fun to have a whole weekend to hang out. I am hopeful that the weather allows us to go to the beach!
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