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Pancreatic Cancer Group: Introduce yourself and connect with others
Pancreatic Cancer | Last Active: 5 hours ago | Replies (1298)Comment receiving replies
Marienewland,
Thank you for the congrats. It is a hard decision to make to take a break from chemo. My body seemed to be telling me it was time. No cisplatin at all; only the gemcitabine & Abraxane. My oncologist did have to decrease the dosage some due to side effects & that helped a lot. Radiologic remission is the tumors are no longer seen on CT scans (last 2 for sure) & metastatic sites on my lungs were stable. Also, my CA19-9 went from 450 (at diagnosis from EUS) to 8 and was hovering near 35. My doc was not too worried about the CA 19-9 since it can be affected by other issues such as benign breast disease, emphysema, inflammation, gallstones (all issues with me for a long time). Next CT is 25 March and visit with oncologist on the 28th.
Replies to "Marienewland, Thank you for the congrats. It is a hard decision to make to take a..."
Wow! Down to 8. That is great. I guess they call it radiologic remission instead of NED now?
Whatever. We know that we must be on alert and continue to scan quarterly at least!
I took a one month break from chemo in February and started back on gemcitabine alone. Upcoming scans will tell the story but I have to believe it was a healthy decision. If a new occurrence has popped up I will know that it is still active and have yet another data point to track the disease. I hope yours will stay in remission and you can look forward to enjoying Spring!
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Hello 199,
Thank you for answering my questions which probably sounded a bit intrusive, but they give all of us hope! I’m so glad to hear about your success and it’s good to know you can remove the cisplatin and still get fantastic results. Not to sound like a Debbie downer, and just based on my own personal experience which could be different from your own, but keep good watch on that ca19-9 and get it checked regularly (not every 3 months). Go to your primary care dr if necessary to get more orders if your oncologist doesn’t want to.