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).

Steve Jobs pancreatic cancer

It's quite astonishing how before father had his metastatic liver cancer, cancer was something that happened like car accidents happen: far away from my daily routine. Until father was diagnosed with cancer and suddenly the whole neighbourhood seems to have cancer. I mean, neighbours suddenly came out with cancer stories, even your own family members whom you didn't see for ages, suddenly have cancer...

A similar thing is happening with pancreatic cancer: first there is Pavarotti, now there is Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer survival

What happens if pancreatic cancer treatment no longer works? Basically the doctors tend to go to their next patient and you are kind of left in the cold when it comes to the medical world: in stead of focusing on a cure, the focus will be on living with as little pain as possible. The new word in your last stage of your life will be "palliative care".

When a patient sometimes has received different medical treatments and they do not work, then over time the cancer tends to become resistant to all treatment. At this time it is important to weight the cost and benefits of new treatment against possible downsides. For father the choice was:

• die because of cancer


• die because of toxic chemotherapy

It may come to a point where you just have to plan on surviving as long as you can with the odds against you.. This is likely the most difficult time in your battle with the disease.

Palliative care

What is important is that you stay as comfortable as possible and seek palliative treatment during this time.

It will help relieve the symptoms of your cancer and its main purpose is to improve your quality of life. Now this is the theory: it's quite hard to talk about quality when some of your body organs is shutting down.

At some point you may benefit from hospice care but most of the time, this can be given at home. (as long as you fork out the money!). The focus of your care at this stage is to live as fully as possible. Now is also the time to focus on the most important things in your life and never ever to give up hope.

Pancreatic cancer survival : gemcitabine is no miracle cure

Like what we thought about the other "miracle cancer cure" Xeloda: which is chemotherapy in a pill. Sounds less invasive, but the oncologist said: it is still chemotherapy with all the consequences of normal chemotherapy...

According to Dr. Tempero, gemcitabine improved survival duration in comparison with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), with 6-month and 12-month rates of 46% and 18% vs 31% and 2%, respectively. 5-FU would have been the chemotherapy of choice is father would have opted for chemotherapy.

Pancreatic Cancer Survival: Impact of gemcitabine on overall survival of patients with resected pancreatic cancer. Adapted from Neuhaus P et al. J Clin Oncol 2005;23[suppl]:311s.

Pancreatic Cancer Walk

How you can help to raise funds for pancreatic cancer!

Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States . It is a silent killer and this type of cancer spreads easily. Signs and symptoms may not appear until the disease is at the advanced stages. By that time, the cancer would have spread to other parts of the body. Funds are needed for research into the cause and cure of this disease.

Walk for Pancreatic Cancer research at Albany Capital District on Sunday, September 23rd 2007.

This will be their 4th annual walk and it will be held on Sunday, 9/23 at the Bethlehem Town Park in Delmar , NY .

Registration starts at 0900hrs and the walk will start at 0930hrs. Please join, as not everybody is as "lucky" as Steve Jobs...
More funds are needed as it is sad to hear that in the 21st century, one couldn't even detect what fathers' primary cancer was...