My wife had folferinox and stereotactic radiotherapy. It reduced the pancreatic tumour, hence we suspect her reduced need for insulin. However metastic tumours have appeared in the liver though rendering her unsuitable for surgery. She was borderline and we hoped the tumour would be restaged to operable.
She does not want the gemcetabine chemo that was offered as it would worsen the neuropathy she has and the oncologist could not give us any assurances that it would be effective in any real way.
So she feels better now than she has for the past year and hopes to feel even better. However we know that will not happen and that it will spread and get worse. So we are looking for other treatments that might help. At the moment all we can see is dendritic therapy which might help prolong the sense of wellbeing. It is however very expensive. And seemingly only available in Munich. Is it available in the UK? Anyone know?
We have sent blood away to be tested for DNA marker that could be targeted with immunotherapy. As yet we have no results. But wonder if such therapy is available on the NHS and if not, why not?
What other approaches can we seek?
Histotripsy is being done in Barcelona of Pancreatic cancer with liver metastasis but my wife did not qualify because he had had stereotactic radiotherapy which would skew the data they are trying to collect. So is this being done in the UK? I understand it is being performed on Liver cancers in Cambridge.
Anyone know if the removal of Liver tumours could put my wife back in line for surgery?
A lot of questions... when I asked the oncologist she simply said that you can always find some rogue surgeon who would do surgery if you paid enough and did not think it would make much difference.
So I'm looking for advice.
Hi Orangeblue31
I see you posted this same question about 6 weeks ago but didn't get any replies other than telling you that others hadn't been offered anything other than chemo either.
My husband has currently had 4 of 6 cycles of FOLFIRINOX and is tolerating it quite well. He does get the occasional neuropathy in his fingers if he touches something cold, but his main side effect has been fatigue. He is currently staged at borderline resectable and the chemo is being given in the hope that it will shrink the tumour so that surgery can be performed.
Obviously we haven't looked into what treatment might be available if his tumour turns out to not be resectable but I hope your wife is able to access something. Has she asked if there are any trials available if the only treatment available is chemo?
Let me know how you get on with sourcing further treatment.
Anne
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
