Any New Treatment

My husband was diagnosed Jan, 2005 with PC, had surgery and found to have mets to liver. The PC is acinar cell carcinoma. He has been having chemo since Aug, 2005-gemcitabime. His weight is great, no nausea, pain, jaundice. Last CT scan in March showed a slightly worse looking liver. Doctors are wondering about changing treatment to 5-FU and cisplatin. Would like to hear from patients and doctors on what treatment are out there and how they are working.

My husband is three weeks out of a whipple. We had to have chemo and radiation before whipple to shrink the tumor. 5-fu and cisplatin were the drugs that we used along with radiation daily for five weeks. It did the job and we were able to get all of the cancer and all pathology was negative. Those were very good drugs of choice for us. He had little to no side effects. No hair loss, stomach upset or anything. Hope this info helps some. Rely on the lord for your strength. We will think of you.

My husband is on 5-FU, Gemzar, and cisplatin. The latter drug is very strong and my husband does not handle it well. He is sick for days afterwards and is very weak and in bed for 1-2 weeks. The drug works well as far as working against the cancer, but the cost is too high for us and we have decided after 4 treatments with the Cisplatin to decline it and talk to the doctor about other drugs. I hope this helped a bit! Keep the faith.

Thanks for replies, I appreciate the time. My husband is waiting for a CT scan the beginning of June to determine if he needs to change chemo. It's hard to believe that the chemo might not be doing the job when he has minimal pain, no loss of appetite or weight plus he is still going to work part time. The biggest job I have is trying to get him to keep a positve attitude.

My dad had whipple 2 years ago and then underwent 6 months of chemo/radiation in a clinical trial. All was well until this months check-up. It is now in the liver. He is undergong Gemzar treatments for 6 weeks (one day a week w/ one week off)
After one week his white blood cell count was too low as was platelets so he had to skip. I'm wonder if a blood trasfusion would help this????
Any thoughts?

How long was your husband on Gemzar before it quit working? My dad just started on it this month.
He had whipple surgery 2 years ago and then 6 months of chemo/radiation. We thought we were in the clear. Now it is in the liver.
We are hoping for a miracle. Gemzar is the best choice, we were told. My dad tolerates it great. He was on cisplatin over a year ago after the whipple and had a hard time--very sick all the time.

My husband has been on this since Aug/05, a weekly treatment for three weeks then off a week. He has tolerated this very well, he has not weight loss, minimal abdominal discomfort, still working part time, therefore its hard to believe that its not doing some good. He had his CT Scan today and we go on Monday to find out the results. The last Scan showed a slight increased spots on his liver. The doctors were talking about 5FU and Cisplatin but we will see. Did your dad take any oral chemo at all, ???Tarzar