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Recent diagnosis: Have questions about treatment options?
Pancreatic Cancer | Last Active: Dec 22, 2024 | Replies (62)Comment receiving replies
Case Update: I had a whipple procedure at MSK yesterday that was aborted after the surgeon saw cancer cells in the liver upon examining the area and takikg a sample laproscopically. Doctor said it's considered Stage 4 now.
My latest CA19-9 levels (I ordered myself last Sat) were 247, which had gone up in 2 weeks from 176.
I did have jaundice symptoms upon diagnosis a month back and they had put in a stent in the bile duct. I have also had bowel obstruction symptoms for a while now.
I am still in shock and this changes the treatment options entirely. I know there are so many people here who have been battling with stage 4, but I am yet to come to terms with it.
MSK has advised on starting chemo upon getting the path results in a day or two. They said it could be pancreatic or bile duct cancer. They said I should start chemo even before the genetic testing results are out.
I am also considering alternate therapies like Envita in Scottsdale or even some centers in Gemany with wider range of options. Wondering if anyone has used alternative therapies for Stage 4 since the standard course of treatment (chemo, radiation) seem to have poor prognosis.
Replies to "Case Update: I had a whipple procedure at MSK yesterday that was aborted after the surgeon..."
mrajat,
Sorry to hear this.
My advice is to not focus on the stage # or the % #s and instead focus on the things you can control.
Each person responds to treatment differently. You are a sample of one, you’re not in the other 90+%. You are young and fit and those things offer you an advantage and an edge that many don’t have. Many posters here are doing well with a similar diagnosis.
May want to get a pre treatment PET scan to compare to see how Chemo or RTx or other treatments are working to help guide your successful treatment.
If by surgical means or chemo or RTx or other you want to end up with a dead tumor. Per this you can monitor treatment success with PET and CT scans.
Not exactly what you’re facing but it may help you and it applies anyway.
https://www.ajronline.org/doi/pdf/10.2214/AJR.20.24567
“In conclusion, in patients with BR/LA PDA, metabolic metrics from PET/MRI and morphologic metrics from CT may help assess pathologic response to NAT and to predict survival. These measures have high NPV for pathologic response. In comparison, the widely used serum biomarker CA 19-9, either in terms of baseline value or in terms of normalization after NAT, was not associated with pathologic response or survival.”
You can still win this, you just have to play your cards slightly different.
God bless and good luck.
mrajat,
Do you have IPMNs in your pancreas?
Read that PC related to IPMN’s has a better prognosis than “regular” PDAC.
Don’t think it changes the treatment options but maybe useful to know.
God bless and good luck.
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I'm sorry to hear this terrible and shocking news. IMO you should start chemo ASAP as they recommend. There's a good chance that it will at least knock the tumors down somewhat, make you feel a bit better, and give you time to think.
At one point Google decided to show me a bunch of ads for Envita. So I looked it up and came to the conclusion that they're quacks out to make money from desperate people.
The clinical trial route is probably a better bet.
I will admit that I have been considering the possibility of high dose IV vitamin C for myself, which is an "alternative" treatment. There is some recent evidence in its favor for pancreatic cancer. There's lots of crazy stuff out on the internet, most of which, I'm afraid, is just crazy stuff.