Breast cancer and adjuvant therapy

I had told you earlier about one of my distant relatives suffering from a medical problem. Well, the problem, unfortunately, is breast cancer. The only good thing is that it has been detected very early and is at Stage 0, which is very early breast cancer. That is, the cancer cells are still only in the duct or lobule where they began. I read somewhere that the incidence of breast cancer is increasing because of various factors. For example, the increasing use of contraceptives plays a part in it. Anyway, my relative had asked me to do some research on breast cancer and adjuvant therapy. She wanted to know about the various medicines available to treat her condition and the various benefits and/or side effects associated with them.

The first thing she told me about herself is that her tumor is HER2+. HER2 stands for Human Epidermal growth factor Receptor 2. The problem is that HER2+ tumors tend to grow and spread more quickly than tumors that are not HER2+. Well, I just read about Herceptin (trastuzumab), which is a treatment for women with breast cancer whose tumors have too much HER2 protein (known as either "HER2-positive," "HER2+," or "HER2-overexpressing"). Herceptin was approved for the adjuvant treatment of HER2+ breast cancer in 2006. It seems like a very promising adjuvant treatment, so I am going to send this information to my relative right away.