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Pancreatic Cancer Group: Introduce yourself and connect with others
Pancreatic Cancer | Last Active: 14 hours ago | Replies (1417)Comment receiving replies
Hello,
My 73yo dad was diagnosed last month with a 2.9 lesion on the head. His CA19-9 was 8000. The scans showed no spread. He is a candidate for whipple but they will start with folfirnox first and after surgery. The CA19-9 is very alarming. He is supposed to start chemo friday 12/13 but his CA19-9 just came back 10000. Pet scan and ct scans still show no spread. Why is his level so high ?
Replies to "Hello, My 73yo dad was diagnosed last month with a 2.9 lesion on the head. His..."
hello @kevun123
That’s a very interesting question. MRI might show a liver lesion (not a tumor or nodular shape) where the PET and CT might not show lesions that are small. At least this was the case for me.
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CA19-9 of a single reading is not of much value at this point. It is only a single datapoint in time and is too early to indicate a trend when chemo is just starting. It is a well known, documented fact with mode of action elucidated by researches as to the cause of the observation in its rise at the start of chemo.
This scientific paper will explain about tumor burden, CA19-9 and the rate-limiting factor of the liver enzyme that has to process a growing backlog of CA19-9 being released as chemo begins causing cell death through DNA damage resulting in the process of apoptosis.
Increase in CA19-9 in early chemotherapy treatment cycles
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468294221000952
(This was the article I was looking for topost to your DM inquiry on Reddit).