Pancreatic cancer

Welcome
Hello Marcswife
Welcome to this discussion board. I was a caregiver for my dad he started out with esophageal cancer which after 16 mos. spread to his liver. This cancer depends a lot on the individual. Marc has to have a positive mind set. He has to be determined to fight. It also depends on what stage he is at. There are some new treatments out there for liver cancer. You have to do a lot of research, ask a lot of questions. Will Marc also be having radiation treatments? Always know that if you are not happy with his dx, or his treatments you can always seek a 2nd opinion. My dad lost his battle on March 9, 2010. I am confident in knowing that he is now in heaven without any pain, suffering, or cancer! keep us up to date.
Tina in Va

Hi there,

Sorry to hear what you and your wife are going through. My husband too has metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma. He was on Folfirinox which includes Oxaliplatin (Eloxitin). His tumor was knocked down considerably by Folfirinox but not enough so he switched to Gemzar plus Abraxane. This combo has done an amazing job knocking down his tumor (for now!) He had to stop the Abraxane though after 3 months b/o painful neuropathy but he is doing well for now just on Gemzar.

Oxaliplatin is often effective as is 5FU for PDAC though the side effects are challenging. With oxaliplatin there is often marked cold sensitivity in people's hands; my husband had to wear gloves to go in the refrigerator and also could not drink cold liquids. Now he is off it, the cold sensitivity is gone, luckily. Some use cold wraps of the hands while getting the oxaliplatin infusion. If your wife can tolerate that, it can reduce the extent of the hand neuropathy though it does NOT prevent it.

Also, you might want to get support from a GI doc if the GI side effects of 5FU are troublesome. We are lucky enough to have a brilliant friend who is a gastroenterologist. Her input made a BIG difference in my husband's ability to tolerate the 5FU. Had we only relied on my husband's wonderful oncologist and on his helpful palliative care doctor, my husband would have suffered a lot more than he did. So, IF your wife has a lot of trouble with GI side effects, please consider reaching out for further help from a GI doc. Just bouncing between a laxative and a constipating med is not great. It helped my husband a LOT to have lots of fiber daily and Benefiber is easy to put in drinks and soup.

I hope you are happy with your treatment team. Sometimes it is worth it to reach out to clinical trial centers to talk to the oncologists there even if you and up NOT wanting a clinical trial. The Sarah Cannon network of cancer trial centers is relatively accessible even from out of state. The oncologist we talked to yesterday from Sarah Cannon was very helpful even though we won't be switching my husband's treatment for now. But he had a lot of other options for the future if we need a clinical trial then and was very knowledgeable and approachable.

Should you care to call them the phone # for Sarah Cannon is ‭(720) 754-2610‬ There are many other great places but this network of trial centers has a goal of being accessible to people who live far from academic centers. We don't, but they were still helpful to us.

I hope this is not too much information at this very difficult time, and I hope at least some of it is helpful

Best of luck to you and to your wife.

CP

PS "Pancan" is also a great organization for supporting those with pancreatic cancer and has lots of information available as well as very helpful re: clinical trials if you ever want to pursue those