Pancreatic cancer has attracted media attention as many celebrities have been victim to this dreaded disease. Steve Jobs, Nargis Dutt, Patrick Swayze and late Goan CM Manohar Parrikar have all died of this cancer. Despite the attention there has not been much awareness about it.
Pancreas is a deep-seated abdominal organ. Functionally, it is a mixture of endocrine and exocrine glands, secreting insulin and digestive juices, respectively. In fact, a common medical emergency, acute pancreatitis is a life-threatening disease, wherein pancreatic secretions leak and digest the organ itself as well as surrounding structures.
Cancer of the pancreas is a rare but an aggressive disease. This is eleventh most common cancer in the world. Despite growing medical and technical advancement, pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose because of pancreas being seated deep in the abdomen and silent nature of the disease in the beginning.
As pancreas is surrounded by important complex internal structures, its cancer is difficult to be surgically resectable, making the treatment more difficult. Diagnosis is difficult in the early stages because biopsy is tedious due to pancreas’ location in the stomach plus it is a sensitive, delicate and vital organ. Even after detecting and confirming the diagnosis, it is a very resistant disease with very poor response to available modalities.
According to global statistics, this cancer is almost always fatal, being the fifth biggest cancer killer. More importantly, as its occurrence rates are increasing worldwide, death rates are also rising in parallel. It is in contradiction to most other cancers, where better treatment modalities have improved the survival rates. Nevertheless, early detection definitely offers better chances of cure and survival.
