Introduction

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with a very low survival rate. The good news is that there are people who can help you.

A Chance Meeting

Below you’ll find some information that may be helpful to you.

Pancreatic cancer is often hard to detect in its early stages, so it’s important to know the symptoms and risk factors. If you or anyone in your family has had pancreatic cancer, your chances of developing it are higher than average. If you have a history of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, there’s an increased risk for pancreatic cancer as well.

While the numbers aren’t exact yet, there are many people who live with chronic conditions like diabetes and obesity who also develop pancreatic cancer because these conditions can cause insulin resistance—a factor that increases the chances of developing this disease by up to 10 times.

What Is Pancreatic Cancer?

Pancreatic cancer is a malignant tumor that arises from the cells lining the inside of the pancreas. The pancreas is an organ located behind the stomach and between the lungs. It produces enzymes that help digest food, and also makes insulin to control blood sugar levels.

The pancreas has two main functions:

• To produce digestive enzymes to aid in food digestion and absorb nutrients from digested food
• To secrete insulin into your bloodstream so that your body can use glucose for energy

Risks, Signs and Symptoms of Pancreatic Cancer

You should know what to look for if you think you might have pancreatic cancer. If a doctor suspects that you have this disease, he or she will take a medical history and perform a physical exam. Tests may include blood tests, imaging studies and genetic tests. Surgery may also be done to confirm the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

A doctor can detect several types of signs and symptoms during an examination that might indicate pancreatic cancer. Some possible warning signs include:

• Persistent abdominal pain (located in the upper abdomen) that radiates to back or sides
• Loss of appetite
• Nausea and vomiting (occasionally with blood)

Treatment Options

• Surgery. This is the most common and effective treatment for pancreatic cancer, but it may not be possible in many cases because of the location of the tumor. Surgeons remove part or all of the pancreas, surrounding lymph nodes, gallbladder and any tumors present in nearby organs such as the liver and small intestine. If a tumor has spread to other parts of your body, you may need chemotherapy before surgery to shrink it so that it can be removed safely.
• Radiotherapy (radiation therapy). Radiation therapy uses high-energy beams from powerful computers to kill cancer cells in much less time than chemotherapy does. It may be used either alone or with surgery, chemotherapy or hormone therapy to treat early stages of pancreatic cancer or metastatic disease that’s spread beyond your pancreas but cannot yet be surgically removed from other organs such as liver and lungs etc

Understanding the Role of Your Health Care Team

Your health care team is the group of people who will take care of you and help you get well. Your doctor is the most important person on your health care team. He or she has studied how to take care of patients with pancreatic cancer and other diseases. Your doctor may be a general practitioner (a family doctor) or a specialist called an oncologist, who has studied cancer in depth, knows all about it, and cares for patients with this disease every day.

Your friends, family members, and coworkers are also part of your support system. They can be good sources of information when they know what questions to ask the doctors treating you. You might also want to talk with others who have had similar experiences with pancreatic cancer so that they can answer any questions that come up as you learn more about this disease.

Your health care team will help make sure that all necessary tests are performed before starting treatment so that there are no surprises later on down the road – surprises which could cause complications or delays in getting started on treatment! The sooner we start treating someone’s cancer (and not waiting until we find out if it was benign), then chances are better for survival rates because some cancers grow faster than others do – meaning it could spread further before being detected than another type does.”

There are people who can help you.

• You can always ask for help. Whether you need a friend to listen, or an organization that can provide support, there are people out there who will be glad to help in any way they can.
• Don’t panic! While this diagnosis is scary, it doesn’t mean your life is over. There are ways of living with this disease and managing it so that you can live as well as possible until the end.
• If something doesn’t seem right—if a test result is unexpected or confusing—it’s okay to get another opinion from another doctor. Third opinions aren’t uncommon either, especially if there’s some disagreement between what two different doctors think about how best to manage care going forward (and especially if one doctor seems more confident than another).

Conclusion

If you’re worried about pancreatic cancer, know that you are not alone. It is estimated that over 60,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019. But there are people who can help you—people who understand how terrifying this diagnosis can be and want to do everything possible to make sure you get the care and support you need as soon as possible. That’s why we want everyone who lands on our website to find out more about what they can do when faced with this disease.