Inclusion Criteria:

- male or female ≥ 18 years of age. If female of child bearing potential and outside
of the window of 10 days since the first day of the last menstrual period, a negative
pregnancy test

- patients with known locally advanced or metastatic carcinoma of the pancreas

- planned gemcitabine treatment

- calculated creatinine clearance >50ml/min (calculated by Crockcraft and Gault
equation)

- able and willing to follow instructions and comply with the protocol

- provide written consent prior to participation in this study

- Karnofsky Performance Scale Score 60-100

Exclusion Criteria:

- Bilirubin ≥200 umol/L

- AST or ALT ≥5 times the upper limits of normal

- Serious medical conditions which may prevent a patient from tolerating experimental
chemotherapy such as: congestive heart failure, unstable angina, unstable ventricular
arrhythmia, uncontrolled psychiatric conditions, serious infections, uncontrolled
diabetes

- uncontrolled brain metastasis. Patients who have stable brain metastasis treated
with radiation or surgery who are symptomatic and a stable dose of dexamethasone are
eligible

- nursing females