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Below, week by week, is what OnCo's record of Locally advanced unresectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma says about the first two months: the order is typical, the timing is yours to ask about. Locally advanced pancreatic cancer has grown around the arteries or veins behind the pancreas so that it cannot be removed, but it has not spread to other organs. Chemotherapy is the main treatment, joined in 2026 by a device that delivers electric fields to the tumour; radiotherapy controls pain and local growth, and a minority of tumours shrink enough to be operated on after all. Sections appear only where the record has something to say. Orientation, not medical advice.
Staging tests establish exactly what and where the cancer is. Everything else follows from the answers.
Ask which of these were tested and what the results were; see the report reader for what each value means.
These specialties appear in the standard of care for this cancer. In most centres they meet weekly as a tumour board to agree each plan; you can ask when yours was discussed and what was decided.
A second opinion from a centre that treats many similar cases is normal, not rude; the standard of care tells you what to compare it against.
Each row is a setting from the standard of care, in the order it usually arises. Not all will apply to you; your stage and biomarkers decide which do. The guideline grade, where recorded, says how strong the evidence is.
Exploration and resection, sometimes with arterial reconstruction, for the minority with stable or responding disease and a normalised CA 19-9 after induction.
Modified FOLFIRINOX or gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel for four to six months, with biliary stenting, pancreatic enzyme replacement and pain control alongside.
Alternating electric fields delivered through skin arrays added to gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel (PANOVA-3), approved in 2026.
Chemoradiation with capecitabine, stereotactic body radiotherapy or MR-guided ablative radiotherapy after induction chemotherapy for disease that has not spread; LAP07 shows better local control without longer survival.
Irreversible electroporation in selected centres after induction chemotherapy; no randomised evidence.
Treat as metastatic disease: switch backbone, daraxonrasib after first-line chemotherapy, clinical trials.
Generated from this cancer's standard of care, biomarkers and open problems. Take the group that matches where you are. To tick, add your own and print, open the one-page appointment sheet.
Trials open now for this cancer in OnCo, largest phase first. Joining a trial is a decision like any other: ask what the comparison arm is, whether a placebo is used, and what happens if you leave. The cancer page searches ClinicalTrials.gov live for more.
Much of what helps in the first weeks is free if you know to ask: testing, helplines, rides and lodging, second opinions, trial travel.
Every term links to the glossary.