Concerned about Abraxane + Gemzar at age 82: Hospice vs treatment?

I respect any decision a person makes. This is a long road with many bumps. Some are insurmountable.

Have been on abrax and gemz for 22 months, 33 treatments, and not once had pain or nausia....only side effect was immediate loss of hair and fatigue that has slowed me down but not put me out. 80 yrs old, told we take the treatments that are every other week, forever or until I declare we stop. There is no cure of stage 4 pan. cancer/lungs just looking to slow it down, and outlive the 9 mo. average life span. I have done that with great quality of life, no pain no sicknesses,going to the casino still 3 times a week, and are 22 mos out from my diagnosis. I did have an internal stint surgery put in at time of my original diagnosis 22 mos ago for the bile duct blockage to stop the jaundace i had, It was an easy proceedure that keeps you out of pain. I have had no pain and no trouble with the internal stint My ca 19's are climbing in 22 mos from 6000 to 15000, so "the pill" is probably next, but maybe not, since I am doing so well. One thing, the every other week schedule is recommended for seniors, to lesson the side effects of the 2 common drugs used, AND we got anti nausia meds by intravenus for 15 min each time before the treatment, which probably helped. Is the cancer gone, no, no no, is it slowed up, yes yes yes, and quality of life is almost the same as it was before diagnosis. I have no ellusions, pan cancer is not curable, but at least for me it is at this time very bearable.

I really appreciated your comments. I had decided that I would not seek treatment. Now I think I will talk to my dr again and see what he says. I know everyone reacts differently and I am older than you and don’t relish losing my hair again- vain I know but women are like that. More important, I have a lot of neuropathy in my feet and that is a major side effect of this treatment. Every other week didn’t sound so bad. Here they said 3 weeks on and one off. Where are you being treated?

Really would like to know who your oncologist is and wear to find out the potency and regimen you are on

You are the first response that has directly answered my questions. I notice that 33 infusions in 22 weeks is less than one every other week. What caused you to slow down several times? I so woukd like to talk to you. Having a hard time deciding to go forward with chemo.

I think my husband's treatment was three weeks on, then one off. Hair loss was immediate. He did not lose hair from folfironox. He had neuropathy going into this treatment, and it got severe to the point we needed a wheel chair. I don't know if that was from the gem/abrax or it was just that stage in his illness. We did use the frozen mitts/booties to try to help the neuropathy but I don't think that helped at that point. Unfortunately the gem/abrax did not help him at all. Again, it could be that he was working towards the end of his stage 4 that nothing would help.
In a do over, who knows if he would have tried it? He was age 70 and very good health before pancreatic cancer entered our lives. He died about 6 months after starting gem/abrax, but probably had had stage 4 pancan for more than 2.5 years (in hind site... it was not immediately diagnosed correctly). I don't remember the side effects other than neuropathy as being horrible.
We had an experimental drug his doctor was able to obtain, but health went downhill so quickly that he was never able to try it. It was basically for people who were out of options. Again, no way of knowing if that would have helped or not.
I'm sorry. These treatments affect everyone differently and I don't think there is a way to know if you are going to benefit or not. They obviously work for some people! And I wish Dan had been one to benefit from it. I wish you peace in your decision.

check out the national health study that suggest that seniors over 65 take the modified schedule of chemo for pancreatic cancer...as it it less toxic for their older bodies yet seems to yield not only a minor change in life expentency but also improves quality of life for them....it workd for my husband who had 36 treatments in 22 months, with only a few treatments missed due to flu or colds and nothing due to the treatments themselves....we are now on daraxonrasib but frankly are considering going back to the chemo instead, as it had less side effects than the miracle "pill".
Here's a map to the study on modified chemo schedule and you can also just do a google search for it.
It won't let me put the link but go to the PMC which is the Public Med Central, then the NCBI then NLM or National Library of Medicine to find the article #pmc7692343

oops I should have said the modified schedule is every 2 weeks only or as they state day 1 and day 15 of the month only

Most people with stage 4 pancreatic cancer have had this cancer forming for over 20 years, which is why it is so deadly....hard to detect and overlooked with common simptoms like back pain and indegestion....which is why most patients are stage 4 when found and only 10% qualify for a Whipple because you cannot have a spread to have that done. Daraxonrasib will change this as soon as the FDA fully approves of it as a standard treatment, because it is suppose to increase your life expentency at stage 4 by 50% or more. Good luck ALL.
marlene

@witchypooy, I noticed that you wished to post a URL to an article with your post. You will be able to add URLs to your posts in a few days. There is a brief period where new members can't post links. We do this to deter spammers and keep the community safe.

Allow me to post it for you:
- Attenuated regimen of biweekly gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel in patients aged 65 years or older with advanced pancreatic cancer https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7692343/