A Little About Pancreatic Cancer...

After having a close realtive pass away from pancreatic cancer, I became very interested in certain causes and treatments of the disease. Though no one knows exactly what causes it, there are several similarities between patients, such as age ( over 50 usually), sex ( usually men) , smokers, and previous stomach problems.

This type of cancer is often more "silent" than others, because it very very dificult to diagnose as sufferers often have symptoms such as sore back and weakness of the body. Also, by the time you actually have these symptoms, the cancer has probably already spread all over the body(usually lymph nodes). Thus, many times doctors give patients very small chances of survival, and it is not uncommon for the patients to only live a few months after diagnosis.

The only real treatment that has proven to be successful is removal of the tumor. This only helos however, if the cancer has not yet spread. If it has spread, only palliative treatment can be administered to help the patient's quality of life.

Sufferers are often advised to try and take part in a clinical trial as research is the only way a future cure may be someday found.

For more info, check out the following link:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancerinfo/pdq/treatment/pancreatic/

KC