So my wonderful mom, with a stable in size tumor in the pancreatic head with liver mets, has been having hopeful results with chemo treatment -- the liver spot shrunk to a miniscule size. We opted for the surgical removal of the liver mets spot and biopsy results showed no cancer cells. The sx oncologist also looked around the area too during the procedure and saw nothing visibly concerning. We were informed patients with these kinds of results typically have better/best long term outcome. This was very hopeful. My mom really wants to be eligible for the whipple procedure to remove the primary tumor, and things have been tracking towards that.
That being said, we were getting concerned because after the recovery period and two rounds of chemo, my mom started to experience increased back pain. She also mentioned she hasn't been able to regain her strength she had prior to the surgery. She also is experiencing sudden extreme fatigue to the point she just need to lay down. Her quality of life has decreased some. She has been breaking down in tears because she feels like something is different, and she's so scared. It's incredibly heartbreaking to see.
She just had some imaging done and the report mentioned the liver looks good, the primary pancreatic tumor is stable in size HOWEVER now the imaging picked up tissue growth around the celiac artery and its branches consistent with local advancement of disease.
We're waiting for her oncology teams to call us to give them their evaluation and the impact to treatement options. I've been scouring the government pages for studies and etc. especially any mRNA vaccine studies including https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05968326 . I called the research team and spoke with them and to my dismay, she is not eligible because she received chemo treatment first. It is incredible saddening to know she would have been eligible AND her med onc would have included her in the study but she had incredibly severe post-ERCP / stent placement pancreatitis which prevented her from being eligible for the whipple procedure.
I'm kind of venting out towards the universe due to the unfortunate sequence of events. It sucks to know there's this promising treatement on the horizon yet she can't receive it due to eligibilty criteria. I'm a dietitian so I understand clinical trials, research, etc. but it still sucks to know there's a barrier to a treatment that can have promising results for her.
Back to the original purpose of this post: any chance anyone knows of other mRNA vaccine studies?
This disease sucks so much.