CA19-9 going up and back pain at night - recurrence?
I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July 2022 - stage III, borderline resectable. I had 12 treatments of FOLFIRINOX and followed by a Whipple surgery at the end of January 2023. My margins were all negative, but 1 of 11 lymph nodes was positive. The pathology report after surgery suggested that my cancer is actually a cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer), which is different but similar to pancreatic cancer. Since surgery, I have had CT scans and blood work (including tests for circulating tumor DNA and CA19-9 levels) done every 3 months. The CT scans have not revealed any metastasis and my ctDNA tests have detected no tumor DNA. However, my CA19-9 has gone up over the past 6 months, from 7 to 28 to 76. This has me concerned, as the number only dropped from the time of my diagnosis through surgery (see attached graph). I have also recently started experiencing back pain at night, something that I had before my diagnosis, but that went away during my treatments. This also makes we worry. My oncologists suggests to wait for the next round of tests in another 3 months. Is there anything else I should be thinking about doing? I am currently receiving no additional treatment.
Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Pancreatic Cancer Support Group.
Go to UCLA Health’s Agi Hirshberg Center for Pancreatic Diseases.
Ok, thank you! Why do you recommend them? Were you a patient there?
Top site in So. Ca. I go there for my Pan Can. One of the top 4 sites in entire CA.