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.