Success rate for Nanoknife for Pancreatic Cancer

My brother in law was recently diagnosed with Advanced Localized Pancreatic Cancer. The treatment involves the chemo for 6 months - xeloda by mouth 2 pills a day for 14 days. Two consecutive Mondays at the infusion center for IV treatments of taxotere and gemzar(?)  Third week - no treatment. Fourth week chemo treatment begins again.

Then after 6 months we hope that he will be a candidate for Nanoknife surgery, also called (IRE). His surgeon is Dr. Watkins of Stony Brook University Hospital. I believe he was the first surgeon to ever use the IRE for pancreatic cancer patients with non-operable tumors. Does anyone out there know about the success rate of this type of procedure? I can find no statistics on line related to the use of the nanoknife.

I really would be grateful for all the information I can gather.

Thanks to all!

Search all of this thread looking for postings by philipjax (one L in philip), or http://www.cancercompass.com/profile/PhilipJax

How is your brother managing the Gemzar/Taxotere combo? I'm the only person I know that had that combo and I swear it almost killed me. Obviously I made it through. And have been feeling subtantially better since being done for 8 wks now. After 2 wk did 6wks radiation now waiting for info on why my cancer markers went up rather than down. Pretty scared right now. I don't want to do this again! Good luck so much with the nanoknife. I haven't heard of it before but will be praying for you family. Cal

Hi,

My husband had the I.R.E. procedure over one year ago.So far things are basically fine. Dr. Watkins was our surgeon. There are Nanoknife result reports on the web most by AngioDynamics the machine maker. It's been over one year for us and I have a post here already looking for others for longeivity and no-one has responded. Dr. Watkins did have a patient who had gone beyond 18 months without recurrence and that was last year. I guess the Doctors are the one's who know. Good luck.  

Abandon this thread and switch over to http://www.cancercompass.com/profile/PhilipJax or search Google using the keywords <pancreatic philipjax>.

On Jul 28, 2012 11:31 PM Lucillina wrote:

My brother in law was recently diagnosed with Advanced Localized Pancreatic Cancer. The treatment involves the chemo for 6 months - xeloda by mouth 2 pills a day for 14 days. Two consecutive Mondays at the infusion center for IV treatments of taxotere and gemzar(?)  Third week - no treatment. Fourth week chemo treatment begins again.

Then after 6 months we hope that he will be a candidate for Nanoknife surgery, also called (IRE). His surgeon is Dr. Watkins of Stony Brook University Hospital. I believe he was the first surgeon to ever use the IRE for pancreatic cancer patients with non-operable tumors. Does anyone out there know about the success rate of this type of procedure? I can find no statistics on line related to the use of the nanoknife.

I really would be grateful for all the information I can gather.

Thanks to all!

Hi.  I have also tried to find out the long-term success rate with the Nanoknife.  Dr. Martin recently had a paper out on this topic, but I would like to know more.  How are the first patients (just a few years ago) doing now?  This is what Dr. Martin's study showed:

The 90-day mortality in patients who had procedures with the NanoKnife System was two percent. Comparing patients with NanoKnife System procedures to those receiving standard therapy, the authors reported a significant improvement in local progression-free survival, 14 versus six months. Improvement also was reported for distant progression-free survival, 15 versus nine months. Overall survival was 20 months versus 13 months.

I've read your posts and they're full of pertinent info about the Nanoknife and what you personally think people should do I need info on long term effects and success..

What is your personal experience with Nanoknife? Are you a long time survivor?

Thanks

On Jul 29, 2012 5:06 AM grace9 wrote:

How is your brother managing the Gemzar/Taxotere combo? I'm the only person I know that had that combo and I swear it almost killed me. Obviously I made it through. And have been feeling subtantially better since being done for 8 wks now. After 2 wk did 6wks radiation now waiting for info on why my cancer markers went up rather than down. Pretty scared right now. I don't want to do this again! Good luck so much with the nanoknife. I haven't heard of it before but will be praying for you family. Cal

I am afraid I cannot say how he is managing the Gemzar/Taxotere combo as of yet. He has only received two infusions so far. I'll let you know as time goes on. Have you asked about the nanoknife for your own situation?

Thanks for your kind thoughts and prays. I will hold them for you as well!!

Thank you Lucillina. Please do let me know how your brother does with the chemo combo. In the meantime, I see oncologist on Thursday and will ask about nanoknife. What he did tell me so far though is if the Whipple wasn't successful it would be back to chemo as I'm not eligible for any more surgery, whatever that means. Cal