Surgery The Only Hope For Pancreatic Cancer

90% of Pancreatic Cancer is unresectable at the time of diagnosis. Only about 10% has the chance of surgery and hence cure at the time of diagnosis.That makes Pancreatic Cancer as one of the most feared Cancer to get. Having said that,we hear many people including celebrities who have been cured of Pancreatic Cancer by surgery.This is because Pancreatic Cancer is quite common in the community who are living the modern/western lifestyle.
Surgery is the main hope for cure.Other modalities of treatment are at best "experimental" in nature.
Nonetheless,a chemotherapeutic agent Gemcitabine has very promising outcome to improve in the success of treating pancreatic cancer.
The best chance of treating Pancreatic Cancer is to detect/discover them early even before the classical symptoms of jaundice appears.Patients with vague abdominal or back pain not responding to the usual treatment of abdominal and back pain should undergo a CT abdomen with a tumour marker study of CA19-9.
in reference to: http://www.cancerjournals.net/part-1-pancreatic-cancer-and-the-latest-treatments-ask-dr-patrick-g-jackson/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

In Patients With Pancreatic Disease, Quality-Of-Life Testing May Predict Malignancy And Survival

Quality-of-life measures used routinely to assess treatment outcomes for patients with pancreatic disease may be used to predict both malignancy and survival for those patients, according to a study by Henry Ford Hospital.

Researchers found that pre-treatment quality-of-life scores could predict malignancy in patients with pancreatic lesions and survival in those who are found to have malignancies.

"Our findings suggest that pretreatment quality-of-life scores may show which patients will have a poor survival and therefore could avoid aggressive, but futile, treatment," says Vic Velanovich, M.D., chief of General Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital and lead author of the study. 


Source :http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/187555.php

Immunomedics Reports New Blood Test for Detecting Early Stage Pancreatic Cancer Correlates With Response to Clivatuzumab Tetraxetan Treatment - MarketWatch

Immunomedics Reports New Blood Test for Detecting Early Stage Pancreatic Cancer Correlates With Response to Clivatuzumab Tetraxetan Treatment - MarketWatch

Immunomedics, Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!immu/quotes/nls/immu (IMMU 3.72, 0.00, 0.00%) , a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing monoclonal antibodies to treat cancer and other serious diseases, today reported that a new blood test using the Company's proprietary humanized antibody, clivatuzumab or PAM4, predicted a partial response in an initial set of patients treated with a combination of the antibody labeled with yttrium-90 (Y-90) and gemcitabine. Results were presented at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
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