Has It Returned Post-Whipple??

My Dad (82 yo) was diagnosed last spring with PC.  He had whipple surgery May 31st.  After months of very difficult recovery, he had no signs of cancer.  Now, he is having symptoms that cause me to think the PC may have returned: fever, rigors, itching on the back and stomach, loss of appetite.  Could scar tissue be blocking the flow of bile, or has the cancer returned?

 Has anyone out there had a reoccurrance of PC following Whipple, and, if so, what were your symptons the second time around?

Unfortunately, pancreatic cancer is so aggressive that it usually recurs post-Whipple. The timeline is not always predictable.

My husband had a Whipple in July '06, followed by chemo and radiation, and the cancer returned in April '07. He knew something was up because he started losing weight rapidly again and started turning yellow, this time due to liver failure. Mets turned out to be in his liver. He declined very quickly and died tin June '07. 60 years old, 29 years younger than his parents were when they passed away. So much for good genes.

 Has your dad had a recent CA-19-9 test? My husband's CA 19-9 markers were going up even before the mets could be seen in a CAT scan. The mets were finally seen in a PET scan. If the markers are elevated, your doctor will likely want to do a scan. I can't tell you what will happen next. Some people, like my husband, go quickly after a recurrence while others hang in for a little while. we've had people on this board who lived over a year with stage 4 and no whipple and others who lived under a year despite a Whipple.

 Try to keep your Dad's weight up. I think that what really killed my husband was extreme weight loss. He was down to 138 (from 215) when he died. try ordering Prosure from your pharmacy. it's like Ensure but with fish oil which initial studies indicate might slow the extreme weight loss and muscle wasting from pancreatic cancer. Good luck to you both.

Today we received the results of my Dad's CT scan and CA19-9.  It appears the PC has returned, as I suspected.  His CA19-9 more than doubled in three months (from 1654 to 3478).  A 3.2 cm tumor was found at the location where the whipple procedure was performed and there are several enlarged lymph nodes in that area.  No obvious disease in the liver, but there is one questionable area.

My Dad's oncologist recommended Gemzar treatment, which my Dad agreed to do beginning 3/26.

Just wanted to pass it along in case others experience similar situations....

I am very sorry to hear of your recent test results and my heart goes out to you!

My recent posts have been about my father, but my husband battled colon cancer for 2 years before he passed away at age 35.  One of the treatments he received was chemoembolization to the liver for treatment of metastatic disease.  A radiologist performed the procedure in the hospital, and he was hospitalized for 1 or 2 days, if I remember right.  Everything went well until about a week or so after the procedure.

No one told us that one of the potential effects of the procedure is damage to the gallbladder.  Talk to your doctor about that.  In my husband's case, he became very sick: severe abdominal pain, couldn't stand upright, fever, difficulty urinating, etc...  I took him to the ER and after hours of waiting, he was sent home because they didn't know what was wrong.  At his next appointment with the oncologist, I had to take him by wheelchair because he couldn't walk.  His oncologist immediately scheduled him for an MRI, and it was discovered that his gallbladder was damaged so badly from the chemoembolization that his gallbladder was completely diseased and the tissue was "dead."  Emergency surgery was done to remove the gallbladder and it was gangreen (severely infected).  A drain tube was inserted to drain the infection.

It was really a bad situation and he could have died from systemic infection!  I was angry at his doctors for not telling us it was a potential problem so we could have watched for symptoms, and at myself for leaving the ER without more answers!

In terms of the effect the chemoembolization had on the tumors in my husband's liver... it wasn't significant.  But, it's worth it to try everything possible because you won't know what works for you until you do it.

God bless you!