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CA 19-9 and pancreatic cancer: What do the numbers mean?
Pancreatic Cancer | Last Active: Sep 9, 2023 | Replies (116)Comment receiving replies
My wife's CA19-9 dropped to below 30 after her surgery 2/20/20 but has been increasing ever since. Surgical margins were 100% clean and every surgical biopsy was negative. She's has blood work every month and scans every 6 weeks. Every scan has shown nothing. She's also had circulating DNA tests also negative. Two months ago the CA19-9 doubled and last month it quadrupled. The scans from last week now show a mass on the left ovary. Prior scan that visualized that area was in August and was clear.
We won't know for sure if this is pancan spread or something else entirely until it is removed, but due to the CA19-9, it is likely.
Bottom line, for people who's CA19-9 tracks the progression of their disease, it is an indicator worth paying attention to.
Replies to "My wife's CA19-9 dropped to below 30 after her surgery 2/20/20 but has been increasing ever..."
Beachdog our stories continue to align. My husband 's ca 19-9 has also been rising fast the past few months and we fear a drop metastasis to his colon. Scans and a biopsy so far are inconclusive but the lab marker usually doesn't lie, so we will likely be starting a new chemo regimen this week or some type of immunotherapy. He already had neuropathy from the folfirinox regimen so wants to avoid any drugs that might worsen this. PC is known for spread even after clean surgical margins, so I guess we just roll with the punches 😔. We are being told at Mayo that additional operations to remove further cancer after PC are not advised since there is likely cancer in other places as well - if it spread to one place it has or will spread to others, hence the chemo route to try and kill it off instead. Prayers to all.
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My husbands CA19-9 is definitely an indicator that something is coming back, I know that’s not the case for everyone but for him it is. Pancreatic Cancer is fast moving, he had clear scans in September 2019, but his numbers were trending up, but never high, in January 2020 he was having abdominal pain and with a scan a tumor was visible.