Gtx

I stumbled on this message board when looking up GTX.  My father was
diagnosed on February 8th, 2008.  He will be starting his first dose of
chemo tomorrow.  He has a 2 cm mass in the pancreas with metastasis to
the omentum and duedonum.  It was inoperable and he was initially given
2 weeks to 6 months.  We are hoping that this treatment will give us
more precious time without him losing too much quality of life.  We
went to Sloan but they did not suggest this therapy. A local hospital,
St. Frances, suggested this therapy as it has had some promising results.  He has very little appetite and is weak but in no pain.  He did have a resectioning also.  This came on so sudden. He thought he had the flu, then a bladder infection and then jaundice and then given a death sentence! It seems so unfair.  I do worry that it may be genetic.  It is nice to hear someone else's story.  It is difficult to talk about it to those so close to it. 

Does anyone know about GTX? I'm curious to know how other's have responded to this. Thanks.

On 3/18/2008 debbiez wrote:

I stumbled on this message board when looking up GTX.  My father was
diagnosed on February 8th, 2008.  He will be starting his first dose of
chemo tomorrow.  He has a 2 cm mass in the pancreas with metastasis to
the omentum and duedonum.  It was inoperable and he was initially given
2 weeks to 6 months.  We are hoping that this treatment will give us
more precious time without him losing too much quality of life.  We
went to Sloan but they did not suggest this therapy. A local hospital,
St. Frances, suggested this therapy as it has had some promising results.  He has very little appetite and is weak but in no pain.  He did have a resectioning also.  This came on so sudden. He thought he had the flu, then a bladder infection and then jaundice and then given a death sentence! It seems so unfair.  I do worry that it may be genetic.  It is nice to hear someone else's story.  It is difficult to talk about it to those so close to it. 

Does anyone know about GTX? I'm curious to know how other's have responded to this. Thanks.

Debbie,

This is the craziest cancer there is I think, I guess because it can go to other places so easily and isn't hardly ever caught early.

I am new to the board but have had some experience since last year April  my husband was diagnosed stage 4. Today his CA19-9 is down to 8.

He took his last chemo Jan. 16 We know first hand stage 4 is not a death sentence so don't give up hope.

i mentioned in another post that Pancan has been a tremendous help for us, He was able to talk to anothr survivor and now we are on the suport group end of it and have received several calls, Sometimes it's just good to talk to someone who has had to go through it all already.

Just don't give up hope. www.pancan.com has been a tremendous help to us.

Jan 

Debbie,

My father started on GTX last Wednesday. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December of 2006 and had surgery then. In March of this year they discovered a local recurrence which is inoperable due to vascular infiltration. The doctor is hoping he can shrink the cancerous tissue and eventually use radiation to destroy any remaining parts. He declined to use the standard therapy of Gemzar and Tarceva as he thinks that GTX is more promising for a partial or complete response. Now, all I know about this treatment is what I’ve been finding looking up the term in Google.

You shouldn’t give up hope that your father’s cancer is inoperable. Through chemotherapy they can oftentimes shrink the tumor and downstage the cancer so it becomes operable. 2 cm doesn’t sound so bad. My father’s was 4 cm. In a Whipple procedure they also remove the duedonum I think. I don’t know about the omentum but maybe chemotherapy can force the cancerous cells to disappear there. You should ask the doctors if surgery could be possible after all. If they know about GTX they should know about this as well.

Many blessings to you and your family,

Wassili