Who else has had Gem-Abraxane chemo regimen and for how long?

thank you @gracect for posting that. My husband just started that combination a couple months ago, also stage 4 metastasized. It gives me hope to hear of your husband. He'll have his first scan on the 30th since starting this regimen to see what is happening, but his CA19-9 numbers have gone down to the lowest they've been in a year (still over 300... but they started at over 39000, so definitely better!).

Also, his tumor shrunk by half and has stayed half the size all this time.

No
Metastasis to liver only when he was diagnosed Stage 4
But I have a good friend who had metastasis to the lungs that was caught early - she is a 12 year survivor now!
After whipple and many other treatments but still here and doing well for what she’s been through.

Marvelous!!

That’s fantastic!

I’m on Gemzar/Abraxane every other week. Yesterday the oncologist was weighing the merits of staying on that schedule, where I have time in between for days when I feel good and have energy versus a more aggressive schedule of 2 or 3 in a row. We both opted for the status quo, he so that there’s not a possible interruption to chemo if my numbers drop due to a tighter schedule and so that I have more high energy days, and I for the same energy reasons and because right now the tumors are stable.

Same with my husband. When he did 3 weeks on and one off his platelets often didn’t cooperate and he had very few good days between treatments until the off week. Every other is so much better and tumors stable with him also.

I was on Folfirinox w/ so-so response before Whipple in 2022. After recurrence, I started Gemcitabine + Abraxane + Cisplatin in January 2023. I did that biweekly nonstop except for one treatment missed due to Covid in Feb 2024. Resumed 2 weeks later, continued until April 2024 when I took a 4-month break for a clinical trial.

The trial failed, my tumors grew, and my CA19-9 went from under 100 to almost 2400. I resumed the biweekly GAC in July 2024, and my CA19-9 went down quickly. I missed one round of chemo due to hospitalization in August, but have been going strong on the biweekly schedule since then.

I dropped the Cisplatin about 6 weeks ago, but my CA19-9 has continued downward, reaching 76 yesterday 🙂 on the G+A alone. Cisplatin can be hard on the kidneys and can cause nausea; I had some issue with the kidneys, less with nausea. I'm starting to worry about peripheral neuropathy from the Abraxane though...

My oncologist said most people on the GA alone do 2 or 3 consecutive weeks before a week off. I asked about going 3 weeks between treatments, but he strongly recommended against that, based on the cancer cell life cycle and the CA19-9 rises I saw when I missed a treatment due to Covid and when we tried a 20% reduction in Abraxane for two treatments.

The treatments are still hitting me harder than they used to. I feel like crap for 3-4 days after a GA infusion. We decided to keep the status quo (2 week intervals) so I'd have 10 "better" days between treatments, and give my hemoglobin a little more time to recover. Since my CA19-9 and scans are going in a good direction, we didn't see a need to change at this time.

My husband is on GA 3 consecutive weeks, then a week off. But after week three it takes him more than a week to recover. He starts on the 26th with the first of 3 again, and a scan on the 30th. I may ask the dr after these three about changing to every other week. His white blood cells, etc were really down on week 3 so maybe he needs more recovery time between infusions.
He also has the neuropathy from this past year of folfirinox and is now doing the ice hands/feet/mouth during abraxane, but I'm not sure it is helping any. Maybe is helping it from getting worse?

can I ask how long he did the 3 on/1 off? I'm wondering about bringing this up to the oncologist, but Dan has only had two months of the 3/1. He starts the third 3/1 on the 26th.
Prior to that he had nearly a year of folfirinox.