Connect
Radiation after chemo?
My 81 year old mom has been having chemo past four months and the side effects have really started to get bad - fatigue, skin lesions, tastebuds gone - but her tumor has decreased and C19-9 indicators are less than 1. All good news but still needs to shrink more for Whipple to be an option. We caught it early. She is dreaming about stopping the chemo and doing radiation instead - specifically the MRI guided radiation therapy. What should we know about radiation vs chemo for side effects? For results? Her oncologist seemed reluctant to recommend it.
Like
Helpful
HugInterested in more discussions like this? Go to the Pancreatic Cancer Support Group.
Connect
My husband had MRI guided radiation (aka SBRT) after chemo failed to shrink his tumor. Within a couple of weeks after finishing radiation, he developed anemia which was caused by an upper GI bleed that his team believed resulted from friable tissue caused by the radiation. He could no longer be on blood thinners. Chemo and PC itself can cause blood clots, so not being able to take blood thinners can create a life threatening situation.
I’m not sure if this is a common side effect with radiation so please ask your doctor for their opinion.
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
1 Reaction@julia725
Interesting! I also had SBRT recently on a tumor in my liver. I was advised not to stop chemo. I have had 3 occurrences of very red urine for 2 days each. Cystoscopy showed nothing. I have been on eliquis. The presumption has been that the blood thinners may have somehow played into this.
Now will be off chemo for two months. But on eliquis. We will see if it occurs anymore while being off Naliri. So my situation is opposite of his.
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
2 Reactions@alisonsullivan203, how is your mom doing? Is she continuing with chemo and then surgery? What advice did she get from her cancer team?
I had chemo for 6 months with no appreciable reduction in tumor size. I then received 5 SBRT radiation treatments in the hopes that the tumor would shrink by at least 25% to be eligible for the nano-knife procedure. Follow up CT scan indicated an over 50% decrease in size which amazingly made me eligible for Whipple surgery. I had that surgery 2 weeks ago. Surgeon was thrilled with the success of surgery. She was concerned that scarring from radiation would make it difficult.Not sure what follow up adjuvant therapy, if any, I will have. I am a 78 year female. Hope this helps.
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
1 ReactionDon’t know if this will be relevant to you, but I had a locally advanced tumor with vascular involvement. I started with chemo to shrink the tumor and hopefully pull it away from the blood vessels. The surgeon strongly recommended not to get radiation before surgery, as the radiation would make the blood vessels more fragile and less likely to be able to be successfully repaired in the surgery