Pancreatic cancer second opinion: The latest treatments for every stage

At UW Health, we know how scary a pancreatic cancer diagnosis can be.

When you come to UW Health for a second opinion, our team of gastrointestinal (GI) oncology experts evaluate every aspect of your diagnosis to provide you with customized treatment options.

Our experts work with oncologists across Wisconsin by analyzing DNA test results on pancreatic tumors to give recommendations for targeted therapies and clinical trials. Learn more about our Precision Medicine Molecular Tumor Board.

We want you to feel comfortable about your diagnosis and find the best therapy for you. Through a second opinion, you may learn about new treatment options and find new hope. For your convenience, you have the option of scheduling your second opinion visit by video from the comfort of home.

Our pancreatic cancer team is part of the UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center, a Comprehensive Cancer Center as designated by the National Cancer Institute.

We’re also a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium.

Our pancreatic cancer team includes:

• Genetic counselors

• Medical oncologists

• Nutritionists

• Palliative care professionals

• Pathologists

• Psychologists

• Radiation oncologists

• Social workers

• Surgical oncologists

• Nurse navigator

You and your family may find it hard to cope with a pancreatic cancer diagnosis. At UW Health and the UW Carbone Cancer Center, we offer many services and programs to support you and your family.

Our palliative care team can help you to manage the symptoms of your disease and side effects of treatment. Learn more about UW Health’s palliative care program.

Claudia McCormick hopes to someday be the world’s longest living pancreatic cancer survivor.

She's got the battle scars to prove it. Two rounds of abdominal surgery left her with an incision she proudly describes as "a map of Route 66.”

The Beloit woman also wants to use her hard-won wisdom to inspire others faced with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

"I want to help other people and let them know to get a second opinion," she says. "I would be dead right now if I hadn't followed my instinct.”

Dr. Sharon Weber, her surgeon at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, says that McCormick's story inspires hope.

"Claudia's story is one that all of us want to be able to tell more — she is an amazing woman with resilience and fortitude, who agreed to all of our recommended aggressive treatments for pancreas cancer, and because of this, she has beaten the odds," says Weber. "She has an incredible multidisciplinary team of doctors helping her through this, but the victory is all hers.”

McCormick's journey began in the fall of 2016, when she noticed some vague early symptoms. She felt tired; her skin was itchy and slightly yellow. Her doctor wasn't sure what was wrong; that's when McCormick's survival instinct kicked in the first time.

"I asked her to check my liver enzymes and I didn't even know what liver enzymes were, she says. They came back high. A follow-up ultrasound and biopsy revealed a tumor about one and a half inches big in the head of her pancreas. The diagnosis was stage 1B adenoma carcinoma.

After three months of FOLFIRINOX, a combination of five chemotherapy drugs, in March 2017, a surgeon at a community hospital attempted to do a Whipple procedure to remove the head of the pancreas, the gallbladder, bile duct, and parts of the stomach and small intestine.

But when the surgeon opened her up, he decided he couldn't safely operate.

While McCormick was still unconscious, the surgeon gathered her family. McCormick heard the verdict herself, later.

"He said there was nothing he or anyone could do and that I had months to live," she says. "He basically wrote me off.”

McCormick, a mother of two grown sons and a grandmother of one, began putting her affairs in order. She got very depressed. But then she got mad.

"He's not God, and not going to tell me when it's time to go," she says.

She asked her medical oncologist to look into clinical trials, and she began another round of oral chemotherapy along with external beam radiation.

Her younger sister found supplements that she believes helped her body heal.

Finally, in late August 2017, she came to the UW Carbone Cancer Center, where Weber met with her to discuss her case. McCormick was impressed.

Weber was willing to attempt another Whipple procedure, although she told McCormick her odds of being able to complete the operation were only about 50-50.

So when McCormick woke up after surgery in November 2017, her first question was: "Did it happen?”

"When I heard yes, I started crying," McCormick remembers.

The biopsy showed that the tumor had shrunk and had been completely removed. Since then, two scans have shown her clear of cancer. Her CA 19-9 number, which measures antigens in the blood released by tumor cells, fell from 535 at diagnosis to 35 after treatment to 13, well in the normal range, at her last check-up.

"Now I have a second chance at life, and I want to get out there and help other people," she says. "I tell them: You have to fight. You also need a support system. I couldn't do it alone and no one else can, either.”