Gemcitabine and Abraxane is a well-tolerated chemotherapy regimen for pancreatic cancer patients. Retrospective research has shown that negative symptoms can be reduced without reduced effectiveness when the drugs are given every two weeks instead of weekly.
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Gemcitabine and Abraxane overall tends to be a fairly well-tolerated chemotherapy regime.

It certainly is chemotherapy and there can be side-effects such as nausea and vomiting. Most of my patients don't get to the point where they're actually vomiting, it's just a little bit of queasiness of the stomach, maybe for about two days after each treatment. And generally it's pretty well controllable with supportive medications like Ondansetron or other anti-nausea medications.

The other one that can accumulate, especially in the course of a month of treatment, is tiredness or fatigue. The fatigue can become fairly significant, but usually not to the point where a patient is laid-up in bed, just that they feel pretty run down for a day or two. Again, because it is chemo, it can cause things like diarrhea. Hair loss is common and almost certainly will happen, and that's because of the Abraxane and the Am Paclitaxel. And then over time there are some side-effects that can happen with the Abraxane and the Am Paclitaxel called neuropathy or numbness and tingling in the hands and the feet. This tends to take usually several months to develop and is reversible, will go away if the Abraxane is stopped for usually a month or two.

There are rarer side-effects that can occur with these drugs. First of all, the Gemcitabine can very rarely affect the lungs or the liver. And then the Abraxane can be problematic if the liver function is not perfect, and so your physician may need to hold off on giving you the full dose of the Abraxane or even just not giving it all together.

One interesting piece of data that came out about the Gemcitabine and the Am Paclitaxel or Abraxane, is that giving the drugs every two weeks instead of the standard three weeks in a row seems to be just as effective as giving it three weeks in a row but actually is much, much better tolerated. Now, this is data that's retrospective, meaning they looked at charts in reverse rather than formally enrolling them in a study. But I know that I treat my patients every other week and they do seem to tolerate it better and it seems to be just as effective. I think it's something that you could certainly discuss with your physician, to consider dosing it every other week rather than for three weeks in a row.

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