Good-bye Tahoe, Hello PARP

Tomorrow we return to Marin, after spending a week and a half in Tahoe. The picture shows our spot at Bliss a few days ago, but a picture taken any other day this past week would have looked pretty much the same. There really is no place like Tahoe.

Here is some information about the type of breast cancer that I have. It is called triple-negative because my estrogen, progesterone and HER2 receptors are negative. While triple-negative is known to be an aggressive cancer, it is also very responsive to chemotherapy. The challenge for triple-negative patients is that it won’t respond to some treatments normally given to patients with positive receptors.

Until recently, all chemotherapy treatments pretty much took out everything, good cells and bad, in order to get to the cancer—one of my doctors described it as “hitting an ant with a sledgehammer”.   Now, cancer treatments are becoming much more targeted to the cancer type. Because triple-negative accounts for about 15% of breast cancer, and is known to be aggressive, new treatments are being developed that target triple-negative. I am extremely lucky in that one of these treatments is available through my oncologist. 

To receive this treatment, I am participating in a study, which has a long and complex name, but which we are calling the PARP study. The PARP study combines two powerful chemotherapy drugs (gemcitabine and carboplatin) with a PARP-inhibitor drug. A PARP enzyme repairs cancer cells and causes them to grow back after receiving chemo. A PARP-inhibitor is not a chemotherapy drug, but a drug that interferes with a cell’s ability to create the PARP enzyme.

The PARP study is going on in ten different study centers around the country. Until July, Dr. Head was sending her patients down to Stanford if they wanted to participate, but right before my diagnosis, the study opened up in Marin. I am the first patient in Marin to be able to get my chemo in Marin. All things considered, this is a real stroke of luck.

The study results so far have been very promising, and we are very excited that we are able to participate. We also know that I am being monitored extremely closely, and if it looks like I am not responding to treatment, we will be switched to another chemo regimen. Finally, from what I have learned about chemo treatment so far, there really is no slam-dunk, perfect fit, even with treatments that have been around for years. Deciding on this chemo treatment was a difficult decision for us. We made many, many phone calls, and asked our doctors lots of questions. (This is the type of situation in which it is very good to work in health care).  We feel we have made the best choice possible for me and for our family, and it sounds strange, but I am looking forward to starting treatment on Monday--I'm ready to get  this fight started.

Thanks everyone for your continued support--we appreciate all of you so much!