Understanding The Stages of Pancreatic Cancer

Understanding The Stages of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer, also known as exocrine cancer, is a disease where malignant (cancer) cells appear in the tissues of the pancreas.
Uncontrolled multiplication of cells in the pancreas leads to pancreatic cancer. Explanations as to how one develops pancreatic cancer remain unexplained. But, it is not contagious. Over 29,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer every year. Pancreatic cancer is treatable when caught early; but vast majority of cases are not diagnosed until too late. Five-year survival rates show 40 percent survival if the cancers are surgically removed while they have not grown in size and spread to the lymph nodes. What is stage IV cancer of the pancreas survival rate?
General research show that patients diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer survive within a median of 6.8 months to a year upon diagnosis.

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)