Breast Cancer – HER2 Positive

Transcript

HER2 is a receptor that is sometimes on the outside of a breast cancer cell, and it’s just a way that that breast cancer is getting a signal to help it grow. So this is very important because we have very useful treatments for this type of breast cancer. It’s also important because this breast cancer more commonly needs IV treatments, such as chemotherapy, and what’s called anti HER2 treatment, which is also IV. So patients who have HER2 positive disease or HER2 positive breast cancer, they can also have estrogen positive or estrogen negative. So you may be somebody who has both of their estrogen and progesterone receptors are negative, but they have this HER2 positive receptor on the outside of the breast cancer. Then you have other patients who will have both estrogen and progesterone receptors positive, and HER2. And that’s generally something called triple positive breast cancer because you have all three of those receptors that are positive or that’s helping feed the breast cancer. So generally, even though these breast cancers are going to have slight variations in their treatment, generally they’re still treated similarly because of that HER2 receptor that’s on the outside of the breast cancer cell.