Any successful experiences with GemAbrax after awful side effects?

Posted by ashleyshields @ashleyshields, Mar 24 2:37pm

My dad was diagnosed 12/20/2024 with Stage 2 Adenocarcinoma Pancreatic Cancer. We were told originally it was only 2cm and he was the perfect candidate for a whipple, but his oncologist wanted to do 6 rounds of Folfirinox first. After begging and pleading for an updated scan (his CA-19 markers were always UNDER 30) I just wanted to be sure it was actually shrinking the tumor. The scan showed a new met on the liver, also adenocarcinoma, bumping him to Stage IV and tabling the whipple convo for the time being. We've switched oncologists + consulted with Mayo Jacksonville and they want to move forward with GemAbrax. Has anyone had success with this treatment shrinking/eliminating mets? He's only had one round of it so far and we wound up in the ER that night because his fever spiked to 105, lots of vomiting and severe pain. That was 2 weeks ago, and he still isn't back to his usual self, whereas on the Folfirinox, he was acting completely normal. You'd have no idea anything was wrong. Now, he's barely eating, barely drinking, already on all the pain meds, just miserable. Does this get better??? Is the first round just that hard on some people? Looking for any and all insight and advice.

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jymurawski | @jymurawski | 6 days ago

In reply to @markymarkfl "You could inquire about HIPEC or this trial in Houston: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05922930 Best wishes!" + (show)

How are you doing? Are you back on chemo or did you find another clinical trial?

markymarkfl | @markymarkfl | 22 hours ago

In reply to @jymurawski "How are you doing? Are you back on chemo or did you find another clinical trial?" + (show)

@jymurawski , my care teams have recommended against HIPEC for my case. I was in the trial I mentioned above, but it did not work for me; rapid disease progression while on it. I'm not sure what level of secrecy the investigators are bound to, but they "can't" answer my questions about how it's going with other patients or what went wrong with my treatment while the study remains ongoing. So, I went back on my previous chemo (Gem+Abrax+Cis) which worked well for about 7 months, but appears to be losing its effectiveness recently. Still looking for another trial.