My PDAC was spotted “incidentally” during a scan of my kidney. It had already spread to my liver extensively, so it was stage IV by the time anyone knew about it.

I have a BRCA2 mutation, and apparently that is *very* fortunate, because they know how to treat it well. Chemo of gemcitabine+cisplatin stopped the tumor growth and shrunk it, and my CA19-9 dropped dramatically. Very soon now I’ll be switching to a “PARP inhibitor” for maintenance, already known to have good outcomes for my subgroup. I may join a trial that adds keytruda (which I don’t think is already known to be especially effective for my type of tumor, this is how we find out).

So the BRCA2 mutation, which has caused more cancers in my family, at least created a relatively treatable cancer in my pancreas. Today—I don’t think we had any idea at all how to treat it differently 10 years ago. The science *is* advancing.