Brent Xia: Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and the fight against a silent killer
Written by Brent Xia
Alex Trebek. Steve Jobs. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Patrick Swayze. All of these renowned individuals passed away from the same disease — pancreatic cancer.
This malignancy is steadily climbing in incidence and is currently the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States (behind lung and colon cancer), with projections to become the second leading cause by 2030.
This year, an estimated 62,210 Americans will be diagnosed, and an equally grim 49,830 will die from the disease. The age-adjusted incidence rate of pancreatic cancer is slightly higher in Kentucky than the national average.
Despite these unfavorable statistics, the overall survival of patients has improved and doubled in the last two decades. For all stages, the 5-year survival rate is 11%, and for local disease in which patients receive multimodal therapy of surgery and chemotherapy, the 5-year survival is 42%. The majority of this progress is attributed to improvement in the efficacy of systemic chemotherapy options, especially in converting patients into candidates for curative intent surgery.
Although having a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer as a patient or becoming a caregiver for someone recently diagnosed can seem like a death sentence, there are treatment options available, especially if the disease is caught in early stages, with a more favorable prognosis and possibility for a cure.
