HER2 is actually a protein that promotes the growth of cancer cells. HER2-positive breast cancer basically means that those cancer cells have this protein and typically have it in abundance. What this translates into is that the cancer itself is aggressive,
can grow rapidly, and unfortunately it can spread to other places quickly.
HER2-negative cancers do not have the HER2 protein and therefore do not behave the same way as HER2-positive breast cancers behave. A woman can have HER2-negative breast cancer diagnosed at the age of 50. God forbid, 22 years down the line, she
gets a second type of breast cancer, that breast cancer can be very different and now is HER2-positive.
One in five breast cancer patients will have a HER2-positive protein.
Typically the standard of treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer is that patients will get what we call neoadjuvant chemotherapy. That essentially means chemotherapy before surgery. And then they undergo surgery, and then they have more drugs after
the surgery. The combination of medications that they may or may not get after the surgery depends on if there was residual disease at the time of the surgery, when they take out the breast specimen.
Now we've got so many more drugs. And that's what's great about research, is that we're able to develop drugs and treatment options and do more for patients, whereas 15, 20 years ago, their overall prognosis would have been dismal. And now we have patients
who are living 5, 10 years with stage four disease because their cancer cells are well controlled with drugs.
Breast cancer is now the number one diagnosed cancer worldwide, and in the US. It has overtaken lung cancer.
However, lung cancer mortality rates are still greater than breast cancer. And we can say the reason being because we're doing screenings to detect the cancer early. And we know that if detected early breast cancer is curable.
It is better if this cancer is caught earlier, which leads to increased overall survival over years for that woman versus if the cancer is caught later, which essentially decreases survival for that particular patient.
