Medical Updates after PET #2 on Enhertu

On August 2nd, I traveled up to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville for the 2nd PET/CT since I started my 7th line of treatment, Enhertu. If you aren’t familiar with the refrain: “treat, scan, repeat,” let me just say that it’s a vicious rollercoaster I’ve been riding since my de novo Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) diagnosis in 2017. Every three (something six) months, we present ourselves to be scanned, hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst, especially after so many progressions have happened and knowing that progressions don’t always have symptoms.

This time, the news was generally good.

This second scan was much like the first, revealing that Enhertu is doing its job at dealing with the lesions already present, preventing more lesions from forming, and showing more issues with my lungs. There are many scary side effects with the various cancer medications and Interstitial lung disease (ILD), an umbrella term used for a large group of diseases that cause scarring (fibrosis) of the lungs, can be serious with Enhertu. I’ve had scarring in my lungs since Ibrance, my first line of treatment way back in 2017, and new infiltrates showed up in April, the first PET since starting Enhertu. This second scan was quite similar.

However, we had Covid in June. Yes, we managed to avoid contracting Covid until just recently, a feat that every doctor has been surprised about since we tested positive. The majority of the symptoms we faced were upper respiratory and I understand that infiltrates may show up in my lungs 6-8 weeks after symptoms subside. My team is taking a watch and wait approach, especially since I’ve not had symptoms. My cough, though, it’s been hanging around for more than a year, so still working through options with my pulmonologist and ENT.

The bottom line for treatment, for now, is that we stay the course with Enhertu, which has quite literally been the opposite of “easily tolerated” for me. My team agreed to try a dose reduction to 80% as we head into the fall, a busy time of the year for us as a family and for me as an advocate. Hopeful that it will help with the quality of life affects, which have been numerous and debilitating!