Last year saw the inaugural Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Week in the UK, the first collaboration of its kind in the pancreatic cancer community. This year, it will be repeated from 22-28 November with a view to reducing mortality through earlier recognition and intervention.
HEMANT M KOCHER sets out the current clinical status for pancreatic cancer and raises some key issues.
Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease. Recent concerted efforts have made attempts to improve the understanding of the biology of this disease and early diagnosis, and provide better treatment. The tenth most common cancer, with an estimated 7,400 new diagnoses each year, pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related death. There is a strong correlation with age: at diagnosis, two thirds of patients are over the age of 70, while it is extremely rare in people under the age of 45. Unfortunately, 80% to 90% of patients are found to have either a non-resectable carcinoma or metastases at presentation – due to a combination of late presentation (innocuous symptoms and complex, expensive and invasive diagnostic modalities are required to detect this tumour), aggressive biology of cancer and proximity to vital structures, so that even relatively small tumours of less than 2 cm may be unresectable.
Risk factors
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