help to make sense of my dad's situation

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

My dad was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer Aug. 2009 via CT and CA-19-9 (137 at

the time). Since he is 79 and in pretty bad health, we decided not to do any

surgery or chemo therapy. Instead, the doctor put in a bile duct stent at that

time. Then he just took some Chinese medicine for passive treatment.

Amazingly, his CA-19-9 level first reached 226 then steadily reduced. In Sept

2010, it went down to 26! So we thought maybe his situation was under control

and stopped the Chinese medicine. (ly I even thought maybe his diagnostic

was not correct).

Unfortunately, a month ago(Dec. 2010), he started to have high fever and

developed jaundice. Then doctor found out that the bile duct stent was blocked

by stones. The doctors put in a second stent to open the bile duct, which was

able to stop the fever and jaundice.

However, one disturbing news was that the doctor also checked his CA-19-9 level

when he checked into the hospital, and the level was 15000!

I need some help to make sense of his situation. Does this mean the cancer is

coming back or spreading?

Thanks in advance.