Steve Jobs Dead

7 years after first announcing he was diagnosed with cancer, Steve Job was found dead in the surroundings of his family yesterday October 5th, 2011.

Steve Jobs suffered from a rare pancreatic cancer known as "islet of Langerhans cell neuroendocrine tumors" or "pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors". The good news is that these tumors grow very slow and can be successfully treated after they have spread. The side effects of these tumors however are no easy treat, as the endocrine gland produces hormones and with extra tumors, extra hormones will be secreted.

Steve Jobs, the thinker-outside-the-box that he is, went for alternative treatment before opting for a Whipple Procedure to remove the cancer.

Pancreatic cancer prognosis

It's always the same: the doctor gives you a grim pancreatic cancer prognosis related to your loved one or friend has cancer, and immediately you go online to gather as much information you can.

Pancreatic Cancer Cure

3 years after father passed away, months after Patrick Swayze went the same direction, I wonder: are we ever going to find a pancreatic cancer cure?

I think the first thing I did when I heard about fathers cancer, was googling for a cure. What could be we do to battle the disease?

For what I read on the Internet and what happens with almost any cancer: they are far advanced by the time any symptoms appear. Which is why it is so difficult to treat.

As indicated by five-year survival rate of less than 5 %, successful treatment is rare.

It is a disease that is difficult to manage. It is one of the deadliest cancers, killing more than 95% of sufferers – usually within six months of diagnosis.

However, if the pancreatic cancer is found early, surgical removal may cure it. But in reality only 15 to 20% of pancreatic cancers are detected early enough.

For unknown reasons, pancreatic cancer is also relatively resistant to many chemotherapy drugs. However it seems that several newer drugs are beginning to show promise in increasing the response rate to pancreatic cancer treatment.

Seems is not really what you want to hear when you are looking for a cure though...

Types of pancreatic cancer

"Carcinoma...". Immediately my fathers' adenocarcinoma came to mind. At that time explained by a doctor in our family as "the word they use for this kind of cancer in general"... All I remember is they used a lot of words but never got a cure :-(

There are 3 types of pancreatic cancer: 

Pancreatic cancer prognosis

When you remember the news about Pavarotti's pancreatic Cancer in 2007, then you know that the prognosis can be grim. Just like the prognosis of metastatic liver cancer was grim to us. Not to mention my uncle who died with this disease as well.

Yet I can hear you say: people die all the time. And I can hear others say: I pray that my loved one won't die...

Pancreatic cancer diet

In order to prevent cancer, I learned that all red vegetables and fruits are to be eaten as much as possible. "As much as possible" is a crucial factor, that's why it's much better to eat organic tomato paste in stead of eating the same amount of fresh organic tomatoes (it's what in the red color that you need to prevent you from getting cancer).

Cure for pancreatic cancer

One of the most Mediaeval practices is : if your eye hurts you, remove it. 700 years later we are still as barbaric as then when it comes to curing cancer: breast cancer: remove the breasts (mastectomy), pancreatic cancer: remove a part of it (Whipple procedure).