Adenosquamous Carcinoma thoughts please?

Hi everyone ...

   Have not posted for a while because my partner has been undergoing her initial chemo block of GemCis and there was very little we could do but wait and see.

   The PC itself was Stage 4 'locally advanced' and located in the body and tail of the pancreas and was approaching 4.5 inches in size before treatment.  What I was wondering is what interpretation (as far as effectiveness is concerned) we can now put on her CT scan results after this block of 3 x 3 weekly chemo treatments?

   We have been told that the tumor has reduced in size between 10 & 20% and the tumor markers have come down from 10,000 (???) to 6,000.

   The UK doctors have told her that, although this is encouraging, they would like her to undertake a further 3 x 3 weekly sessions of GemCis before consideration is given to radiotherapy and/or surgery.

   Can anyone put their thoughts to this for me please?

(have also posted this on the Johns Hopkins site because, frankly, all of you have been such a great help so far and we are both very grateful indeed for such great assistance)

In our experience, chemo and radiation is done prior to surgery.  I've read that it improves the chances after surgery.  My friends CA19-9 was 12,000, then down to 4000 after chemo and radiation.  Unfortunately he was still not a candidate for surgery.

If you read the NCCN clinical practice guidelines in Oncology, you will see a flow chart that tells the MD the course of action.

Stay with the chemo if possible.

God bless