Winter Garden Magazine November 2018 | Page 27

PANCREATIC CANCER FACTS
• Pancreatic cancer recently moved from the fourth to the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the
United States and is anticipated to become the second around 2020. 1,2
• Pancreatic cancer is one of the nation’s deadliest cancers, with a five-year survival rate of just 9 percent. 1 *
• In 2018, an estimated 55,440 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the United States, and
approximately 44,330 will die from the disease. 1
• Pancreatic cancer is the eighth most commonly diagnosed cancer in women and the 11th most commonly
diagnosed in men. 1
• Risk factors for developing pancreatic cancer include family history of the disease, age, chronic or
hereditary pancreatitis, smoking, obesity and long-standing diabetes. These and other risk factors are still
being investigated.
• Pancreatic cancer may cause only vague symptoms that could indicate many different conditions within
the abdomen or gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms include pain (usually abdominal or back pain), weight
loss, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), loss of appetite, nausea, changes in stool and recent-onset
diabetes.
• The location of the pancreas deep in the abdominal cavity is a factor hindering early detection of pancreatic
cancer.
• Surgical removal of the tumor is possible in less than 20 percent of patients with adenocarcinoma, the most
common type of pancreatic cancer. Chemotherapy or chemotherapy with radiation may be offered before or
after surgery.
• Chemotherapy or other drug therapies are typically offered to patients whose tumors cannot be removed
surgically. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s guidelines for the treatment of pancreatic cancer
state that clinical trials are the preferred option for treatment.
• There are complex biological features of a pancreatic tumor that distinguish it from many other cancer
types.
• High-priority research areas being explored in pancreatic cancer include identifying biomarkers for early
detection using registries of patients with a family history of pancreatic cancer, developing drugs that
target specific gene mutations, understanding how the tumor microenvironment alters drug delivery and
harnessing the immune system for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Sources for statistics:
1. American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2018. Atlanta: American Cancer Society; 2018. *Five-year survival rate comes from SEER-9 data.
2. R ahib L, Smith BD, Aizenberg R, Rosenzweig AB, Fleshman JM, Matrisian LM. Projecting Cancer Incidence and Deaths to 2030: The Unexpected Burden of Thyroid,
Liver, and Pancreas Cancers in the United States. Cancer Res, 2014; 74(11):2913-2921.
©2018 Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. All rights reserved. ORG101 REV-1/18
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NOVEMBER 2018
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