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Is anyone on Capecitabine for pancreatic cancer?

Pancreatic Cancer | Last Active: Mar 26 3:16pm | Replies (19)

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@markymarkfl

@mnewland99 , I would be interested if you could ask your oncologist (medical and/or radiation) is there is any path forward for you to use something like the Civa Sheet. It's a sheet of radioactive pellets that can be surgically placed over a generalized area to provide "one-way" radiation of that area. The gold backing prevents radiation from coming out the other side and affecting healthy tissue nearby.
https://civatechoncology.com/civasheet/
One of their images on that web page shows it attached to the SMA. I wonder if that could help @ncteacher and others with arterial involvement.

There are also several centers offering Hepatic Arterial Infusion Pumps. One example:
https://hillman.upmc.com/cancer-care/surgical-oncology/koch-regional-cancer-therapy-center/treatments/hepatic-arterial-infusion
They inject chemo directly into an artery that feeds your liver, which produces a much more concentrated dose where it's needed. The UPMC link above describes it primarily in the context of liver mets from colorectal cancer, but it seems applicable in general to this non-medically-trained outside observer.

One of the pancreas/liver surgeons at Mayo/Jax (Katherine Poruk) has this procedure listed on her bio page as well.

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Replies to "@mnewland99 , I would be interested if you could ask your oncologist (medical and/or radiation) is..."

As usual, thank you for excellent feedback and recommendations! It all sounds very hopeful. I just saw him today, so I will email my oncologist about those options. I was expecting these kind of options when I switched to UCLA , but so far nothing. Questions are always good though. I did ask my doc today about surgery on hepatic artery and he says it’s only done during the first determination that you have pancreatic cancer. Since any light ups in hepatic artery were seen in December (after surgery and before I started chemo though no radiologist commented it was there until my CT in March 2023) it’s considered stage 4 and I’m told nobody does hepatic artery grafts in stage 4. I would appreciate to know if anyone else has had a different experience regarding this.