The oncologist we saw at Broomfield Hospital said it was standard practice that once pancreatic cancer has spread to the liver no surgery is performed and only chemotherapy is offered. No other form of treatment is on offer.
My wife has had folferinox and stereotactic radiotherapy and although her need for insulin has actually disappeared and her weight has increased thus making us think that things have improved, we were told the petscan shows metastasis in the Liver and so offer only gemi as treatment. My wife refuses to have more chemotherapy as the neuropathy was quite severe and she thinks more would make it worse.
What other treatments are there on the NHS and is surgery really ruled out?
Surely the liver cancers can be dealt with by injecting chemotherapy into the tumours? Or liver cancers can be dealt with after surgery on the pancreas? There was no discussion offered of ways of improving the prognosis despite my request for some ideas as to what to do.
The oncologist appeared to not be well informed as to my wife’s case and had to be persuaded to actually pull up the scans to show us. And I came away thinking I could have been shown anything.
My wife could have been diagnosed six months earlier but the petscan was cancelled and we were told it was unnecessary and then she was treated for functional dyspepsia which even the nutritionist thought strange.
We got the cancer diagnosis with a trip to Malaysia where we were told there was no metastasis and to get treatment immediately. They thought the whipple procedure might be possible.
The NHS took three months to assign an oncologist despite all the scans and biopsies being sent to them. Given what we assumed was the need for urgency, we had a private consultation and embarked on chemotherapy therapy with a view to reducing the tumour in the hope of a whipple procedure. It had locally grown to impact an artery. Which I understand for some surgeons it could still be dealt with surgically.
And now we are in this situation with the NHS, whose treatment of my wife has been peculiarly lacking in urgency or communication.
What can we do?
