Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer

Chemo for pancreatic cancer is one of the options to try to kill the cancerous cells. The vast majority of cancers of different organs of the body are detected early. Unfortunately pancreatic cancer is not one of those. The pancreas is hidden between the stomach and the spine. It’s called a silent disease whose symptoms are unclear. For these reasons when it is finally detected the victims already suffer from metastatic pancreatic cancer at an advanced stage. This is the stage where the patient will be treated with chemo for pancreatic cancer. Metastasis is when cancer has entered the bloodstream affecting other areas of the body. This is already known as invasive cancer. Then the specialist will proceed to remove part of the tissue surrounding the tumor so as to ensure that cancer cells are gone. If the cancer has already invaded other organs then pancreatic cancer chemotherapy, radiotherapy and/or methods of blocking or palliative care should be used.

Chemotherapy affects cells that divide rapidly, which is what usually occurs with cancer cells. However, there are other cells that are not cancerous and also divide rapidly. Some chemotherapy drugs act by interrupting the stage where the cancer cell divides and this makes the cell die. Positive outcomes of chemo are when it:

• Cures – destroying cancer cells.
• Controls – preventing the cancer from spreading.
• Improve symptoms of cancer (this is also known as palliative therapy). Shrinking tumors that are causing pain.

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Chemotherapy drugs can be administered in different ways to the victims: through oral pills, through an IV or intravenous injection, by intramuscular injection or by injection through a needle in the bone marrow. Recent information shows that it also comes topically. Chemo for pancreas cancer is key in the treatment to try to ensure the patients survival. This medication is a gemcitabine drug which is most commonly used in the chemo for pancreatic cancer. Another drug often used to treat the cancer is fluorouracil. Trying to understand the components of these drugs is not so simple. What is really relevant is the important role that they all play in the process of attempting to cure the patient of cancer. Any medication can cause undesirable side effects due to its action on the body. Some of these drugs being quite strong happen to have the following chemo response or side effects:

• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Mouth sores
• Hair loss

The role of bone marrow to produce blood cells is temporarily impaired. This makes it easier for infections to occur, as a consequence of the decrease of the body’s defenses. Chemo is given in the form of cycles during a given period of time which is then followed by a rest period, to produce a hematological recovery because the drug acts on cancer cells, but equally on other good cells. With the chemo for pancreatic cancer antiemetic drugs are administered to prevent or decrease many of the side effects such as nausea and to increase pancreatic cancer life expectancy.