According to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PCAN), pancreatic cancers come with a very low survival rate.  To put this into perspective, 75% of patients die less than a year after diagnosis and 94% die within 5 years. 

What is it about pancreatic cancer that makes it so lethal?

One reason is that the cancer is usually not found until its late stages.  By the time most patients are diagnosed, the disease has already spread.  The cancer often escapes early detection because patients display few warning signs that anything is wrong.  When patients do experience symptoms, they are often vague aches and pains, such as indigestion or back pain that can be attributed to other ailments.  Unlike for breast cancer or prostate cancer, there are no screening tools available for pancreatic cancer

According to the National Cancer Institute, only 8% of cases are diagnosed before the cancer has spread beyond the pancreas.  On top of being hard to detect, pancreatic cancer is very resistant to chemotherapy treatments.  Furthermore, there are only three chemotherapy drugs approved by the FDA to treat it. 

The best treatment option is surgery to remove the tumor, but only 15% of patients have their pancreatic cancer detected in time for surgery.  In the other cases, the cancer has already spread beyond the pancreas to other organs.  For this reason, the PCAN recommends that patients with pancreatic cancer consider participating in clinical trials testing new treatments

What are the symptoms of pancreatic cancer?

As mentioned, signs and symptoms of pancreatic cancer often don't occur until the disease is advanced.  When signs and symptoms do appear, they may include:

·         Upper abdominal pain that may radiate to your back

·         Yellowing of your skin and the whites of your eyes (jaundice)

·         Loss of appetite

·         Weight loss

·         Depression

·         Blood clots 

What causes pancreatic cancer?

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It's not clear what causes pancreatic cancer, but it occurs when cells in your pancreas develop mutations in their DNA.  These mutations cause cells to grow uncontrollably and to continue living after normal cells would die, thus forming a tumor.

Most pancreatic cancer begins in the cells that line the ducts of the pancreas; this type of cancer is called pancreatic adenocarcinoma or pancreatic exocrine cancer.  Rarely, cancer can form in the hormone-producing cells of the pancreas.  If this does happen however, this type of cancer is called islet cell cancer or pancreatic endocrine cancer. 

What factors increase your risk for pancreatic cancer?

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Factors that may increase your risk of pancreatic cancer include the following:

·         Being African-American

·         Being overweight or obese

·         Chronic inflammation of the pancreas

·         Diabetes

·         Family history of genetic syndromes that can increase cancer risk

·         Personal or family history of pancreatic cancer

·         Smoking