A small star of wonder

There are few miracles in Cancerland. Many of today’s treatments are founded on surgeries, chemo and radio therapies that have been around for decades. The concept of mastectomy has existed for centuries, though thankfully surgical practice has improved significantly in that time. Cancer research is resource intensive, costly and for every positive advance there are many more that fail to deliver useful results.  

As a recovering cancer patient, thinking about all of this is a daunting prospect. So many race for the cure because no-one wants their life cut short by cancer. Yet the cure continues to elude us and every day there are tears and condolences as more of our number depart the human race.  This, all too often, is the stark reality of Cancerland. It makes the psychology of cancer equally as challenging as the disease itself.

Science has not given up though and for those of us affected by this odious illness, from time to time there are breakthroughs, stars of wonder that shine a ray of hope into what might otherwise be a very stark world. Since being diagnosed as HER2+ I’ve hunted down as much information as possible about the ramifications of my particular cancer subtype. I am the kind of person who needs to know what she’s up against and until recently it painted a very challenging picture. More aggressive, more difficult to treat and more prone to early metastasis are not the kind of facts I hoped to discover. Without the advent of Herceptin my consult had said our initial conversation, the “yes you have cancer” one, would have been followed by “and we’ll do as much as we can but the outlook isn’t good.”

Unable to resist the urge to undertake my own research, I quickly discovered that members of the HER2+ community seemed to be dying at an alarming rate, even if their cancer was diagnosed early and they’d undertaken aggressive forms of treatment. In 2012 a long knife skewered my heart. The “yes it’s cancer” part was unpleasant but it wasn’t a complete shock. The HER2+ part was a twist of the knife, unknown territory which soon became a gargantuan challenge. Though my treatment is over my quest for research did not subside and as we approach Christmas 2014, the season of peace and goodwill,  a small star of wonder shines for those who are HER2+.

The survival benefits of Herceptin have been assessed in long term research, the first of its kind because Herceptin is one of a handful of cancer treatments that haven’t been around long enough to know exactly what the outcomes might be. Earlier this month the Journal of Clinical Oncology published a study that found Herceptin improved 10-year survival from 75 percent with chemotherapy alone to 84 percent with combination therapy – chemo plus Herceptin. The results also established continued improvement of disease free survival – the addition of Herceptin has seen 10-year disease free survival rates increase from 62 percent to 74 percent. As someone affected by HER2 these increases in 10 year survival and 10 year disease free survival are encouraging. They begin to shine a ray of hope in a landscape where hope is desperately needed – 74% isn’t good enough in my opinion but it sure as hell beats less than two-thirds.

It saddens me that, for my friends with metastatic breast cancer, everyone who is stage four at diagnosis, anyone who isn’t HER2+ and all those living in the wrong geography or an insufficient income bracket this discovery offers no comfort. It’s a small breakthrough with relevance for 15-20% of those with breast cancer. I’m part of that population yet there are no guarantees it will be of help to me either. Breast cancer is like that, no-one knows which straw they’ve drawn and reoccurrences can happen well beyond the 5 year “all clear” period.

Uncertainty and unpredictability are part of the fabric of Cancerland and somehow we learn to adapt to that, to cope with an outlook that’s permanently cloudy, but even for the most optimistic among us this becomes psychologically wearing. Coping is marginally easier if the cloudy outlook is perforated by at least one small star of wonder every few years – it seems that Herceptin may well be that kind of star.

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