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My husband has pancreatic & liver cancer. I want to get the information about treatment of this disease with
gemzar, with gemzar & alternative medicine, with only alternative
medicine and chemotherapy. I need this Information ASAP.
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-chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer does not improve
survival. Treatment like morphine, designed to help symptoms, is good
treatment. -Pancreatic cancer is a very bad cancer to
have, as you now know from the experience with your father. Even when it's
localized to the pancreas and is successfully resected surgically, the best five
year survival rates reported are no better than about 25-30%, and most report
lower survival rates than that. If the cancer is not resectable when discovered,
few people live beyond a year or so, no matter what treatment is given, and five
year survival is zero. If the tumor has spread beyond the pancreas (metastasized) at the time of diagnosis, the results of treatment are even more
dismal, with median survival in the range of six months or so. Unfortunately,
chemotherapy doesn't prolong survival significantly for pancreatic cancer (although a couple of the newer drugs might produce a small increment in
survival). Given that, I would probably not recommend chemotherapy to most
patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer outside of a clinical trial, unless
the purpose is to palliate symptoms, although I would certainly refer them to a
medical oncologist to discuss chemotherapy as an option. Some patients want to
take any chance, no matter how tiny, and will opt for chemotherapy. Others will
opt for comfort care.
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