Pancreatic Cancer: The Cancer Doctors Fear Most

WHY DOES PANCREATIC CANCER KILL SO QUICKLY? Pancreatic cancer silently grows inside you and there are not always signs. When doctors finally do discover it, in many cases, it’s too late to operate on it. Right now, doctors are only able to operate on 15% of patients diagnosed-that leaves 85% who are virtually untreatable. But the positive side is that since cancer grows much slower than doctors thought, it means early detection could have a major impact on outcomes, transforming a highly fatal disease into a largely treatable or even preventable one.

WHY IS PANCREATIC CANCER DIFFICULT TO SCREEN? Doctors do not have a good screening test for pancreatic cancer because of where the pancreas is located-hidden behind the abdomen. By the time a tumor is identified, it is too late. Doctors are working on an early detection blood test though, and this approach will help doctors diagnose the cancer in its earliest stages.

WHAT IS THE LIFE EXPECTANCY FOR SOMEONE WHO’S DIAGNOSED? Sometimes it can be just week, but the average is 3-6 months. Patients who undergo surgery, where cancer has been taken out (only from the head of the pancreas), have about a year.

WHAT CAN THIS GROUNDBREAKING VACCINE FOR PANCREATIC CANCER DO? It is administered just like a flu shot. This is intended for treatment-not prevention. After you are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, you would have surgery, then chemo, and then this vaccine would be administered. It is basically insurance upon insurance. Doctors have tested 100+ patients and some of those patients are cancer-free after 12 years. The vaccine works by getting the immune system to recognize and kill cancer by genetically modifying a cancer cell which is dead and injecting it under the skin. It’ll alert and activate immune cells to find the tumor and kill it. Once it does, it activates the cell to seek out other tumors that have the same proteins in the body and kill those as well.

IS IT AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE NOW? Patients are able to get this treatment now at Johns Hopkins because it’s in clinical trial. Doctors are hoping by spring to make this vaccine available in North Carolina, San Francisco, and possibly Ohio.

WHAT ARE THE WARNING SIGNS FOR PANCREATIC CANCER? Pain in abdomen – The tumor literally compresses the structures around it. Classic pain from pancreatic cancer comes from the upper abdominal that radiates to the back.

Jaundice – If you ever notice a yellowish color-under the tongue or in the eyes and on the skin-this is a huge warning sign. Bile helps you digest fats and is supposed to go into the intestine where it’s broken down and waste is removed. When bile flow is blocked by a tumor, your body turns yellow.

Pale stool – It will look like clay-this means that bile is not in the intestine causing your stool not to turn brown.

Dark urine – It will look like ice tea, then progresses to cola. Bile gets into your urine instead of the small intestine and turns it brown.

WHAT ARE THE MAJOR RISK FACTORS, ESPECIALLY FOR PEOPLE OVER 50?

Smoking – It causes 25% of all pancreatic cancers. It’s obvious for lung cancer because lung tissue is directly exposed to smoke, but for pancreatic cancer, it’s less clear. When people smoke, the chemicals from the smoke are absorbed into the blood stream, and the pancreas is exposed to them-this is what increases development of pancreatic cancer.

Family History – 10% of cases occur from family history. If there is a history, you should consider getting screened 10 years younger than when the youngest family member was diagnosed. Also, a family in which there’s breast cancer and ovarian cancer may put you at a higher risk.

Race – Pancreatic cancer is higher in African-Americans. The increased risk may be due to environmental factors such as smoking, diet, obesity, and/or vitamin D deficiency. Alternatively, it may be due to genetic factors that we don’t completely understand.

Soda Drinker – In a brand-new study, doctors discovered that people who drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87% increased risk of pancreatic cancer-even when accounting for factors like age, obesity, diabetes, and cigarette smoking.