1. < Pancreatic Cancer

End game. What to expect?

Posted by wjk @wjk, Aug 9 2:07pm

I'm a 75 year old guy 15 months into my fight with pancreatic cancer. When I asked my Mayo Clinic oncologist what was my prognosis for life span he estimated 4-6 months (sometime between late August and late October).
Currently I feel pretty good given I no longer am a candidate for Whipple, I have liver mets with several sub-centimeter sized lesions, liver function test results are good, the tumor at the head of my pancreas is approximately 3cm, my CA 19.9 is 211, I can't put on any weight in spite of a good appetite (currently 158 lbs; 15 months ago 210 lbs.), and I exercise daily outdoors (gardening, brush/wood cutting, etc.) though I have limited endurance and fatigue easily.
My questions for caregivers, relatives, and friends of PC patients who have passed include: What are the earlier signs of late stage decline? What to expect physically/mentally near the end?
This is not to say I've given up, I'm simply trying to be practical and anticipate what's to come eventually while being positive. I'm also eligible for histotripsy treatment for 3 of my liver lesions in hopes of slowing things down.
And BTW, I'll be damned if I'm dead by Christmas. Onward!
Thanks in advance for any insights you may be willing to share.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Pancreatic Cancer Support Group.

shell from Canada | @shelleyderish | Aug 17 9:57am
In reply to @marciak9 "The pill is sotorasib or lumakras. It is for pancreas cancer with gene mutations KRAS and..." + (show)
@marciak9

The pill is sotorasib or lumakras. It is for pancreas cancer with gene mutations KRAS and G12C. It was developed for lung cancer patients, but found that it helped pancreas cancer with those gene mutations. It changes the signal in the cancer cell. It doesn’t actually kill it. I’m told it’s an inhibitor. I’ll get a PET scan in November to see if it’s working, but it’s nice that my blood work is coming back better!

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Thank you so much for that information. My husband only had one chemo treatment then had embolisms, cardiac arrest so chemo had to stop. We are just waiting for results from molecular profiling
We are in Canada and they do not do molecular testing here so we opted to pay for it and have it sent to US. Depending on the results I will ask about this pill. And hoping your results in November are positive 💕

REPLY
marienewland | @mnewland99 | Aug 17 2:44pm
In reply to @marciak9 "The pill is sotorasib or lumakras. It is for pancreas cancer with gene mutations KRAS and..." + (show)
@marciak9

The pill is sotorasib or lumakras. It is for pancreas cancer with gene mutations KRAS and G12C. It was developed for lung cancer patients, but found that it helped pancreas cancer with those gene mutations. It changes the signal in the cancer cell. It doesn’t actually kill it. I’m told it’s an inhibitor. I’ll get a PET scan in November to see if it’s working, but it’s nice that my blood work is coming back better!

Jump to this post

That’s wonderful Marcia! Thank you for specifying that it’s specifically for KRAS; that’s very helpful. Inhibitors (maybe in combo with chemo at some point) sounds like the wave for the cure of this persistent disease. Wishing low numbers for you!!

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1 reply
marienewland | @mnewland99 | Aug 17 2:45pm
In reply to @mnewland99 "That’s wonderful Marcia! Thank you for specifying that it’s specifically for KRAS; that’s very helpful. Inhibitors..." + (show)
@mnewland99

That’s wonderful Marcia! Thank you for specifying that it’s specifically for KRAS; that’s very helpful. Inhibitors (maybe in combo with chemo at some point) sounds like the wave for the cure of this persistent disease. Wishing low numbers for you!!

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KRAS12C

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