Round #3 of Chemo

David was able to have his third chemo treatment on Tuesday, May 2nd.  Because he had been bumped two weeks in a row between his first & second rounds of chemo, we were actually shocked when he met all of the blood work parameters for round #3 without any delays.  Overall he seems to be handling each round of chemo better than the one before (I guess his tolerance for just not feeling that well is getting better!).  He seems to cycle through a variety of side effects in the two weeks between treatments that we are learning how to manage better each time.

We got the results back from David's genetic profiling, which proved not to be all that helpful in determining a better treatment protocol for him.  He doesn't have a plethora of genetic mutations, so immunotherapy would most likely not be beneficial (I guess the patients that benefit the most from immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer are those that have lots of gene mutations).  So, our plan is to get one more Folfirinox treatment into David & then do a recheck CT about a week after that fourth treatment.  Then, based on how his imaging looks & how his tumor markers on blood work are responding, make some decisions about his ongoing treatments.  If he is responding, we will most likely continue with the Folfirinox on an every other week basis.  David is getting close to his lifetime limit on the platinum drugs (I guess there is a level you hit where if you were to continue, you could expect to have irreversible, debilitating peripheral neuropathy), so Dr. Fanta talked about alternating David between Folfiri (just 5-FU & Irinotecan) & Folfox (just 5-FU & Oxaliplatin) until he reaches his lifetime dose of the Oxaliplatin.  If he isn't responding to the current treatment, then we would switch to most likely Gemcitabine & Abraxane.  Dr. Fanta is hoping to get David to a point where we could do some sort of chemo maintenance every three weeks or so to try to hold his disease as steady as possible for as long as possible.

Continuing to fight the fight!!!!  Janet