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Pancreas Cancer

low platelets was posted 03/30/2010 06:40 pm by lyn
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Message Text My mom's platelets drop after every cycle of chemo (Gemcitabine/Oxaliplatin). They lowest was 67, and that was a day she was supposed to have chemo. They cancelled chemo until they improved (1 week later). In general, they would like them above 100. But my mom was treated when they were at 85 and 91.

Unfortunately, there is nothing that improves platelet counts. Hopefully, your bone marrow will rebuild them if you take a brief break from chemo, or they may choose to decrease the dose of chemo in the future.

If they become dangerously low (eg. < 10-20 with signs of bleeding), they would give you a transfusion. However, I suspect it is not practical/cost-effective to give transfusions for moderately low levels so that you can get chemo, as you would likely require multiple transfusions over several days. That's my guess...

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