Informative Essay On Pancreatic Cancer

Brandon Fean

Pancreatic Cancer “Over the past decade, pancreatic cancer death rates have been slowly increasing among US men and women, in contrast to the downward trend in rates for most other major cancer sites, such as lung, colorectum, female breast, and prostate” (“Pancreatic Cancer, Cancer Facts”). Pancreatic Cancer can be defined as a cancer that begins in the organ lying behind the lower part of the stomach ("Pancreatic Cancer–For Patients"). Pancreatic Cancer is not getting the attention, and research it deserves. Pancreatic Cancer is the twelfth most common cancer, 40,600 people were diagnosed in 2014 and 40,000 people died from the disease in 2014 (“A Snapshot of Pancreatic”). That means the survival rate of the disease is thirteen

Some treatments include: surgery, ablative therapy, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy/drugs. Surgery happens when it is the best option to remove the cancer from the pancreas directly. Ablative therapy is a type of minimally invasive procedure doctors use to destroy abnormal tissue that occurs with many conditions. Radiation therapy ionizes radiation, to control or kill malignant cells. Chemotherapy is when doctors give the patients a lot of drugs that not only kill cancer cells, but also kill healthy cells (“"How Is Pancreatic Cancer"). Sadly, the reason there is an 87% death rate in the United States is the cancer almost always come back. After treatment, people with exocrine cell cancer most likely get the cancer back, and it never goes away. This is still unknown why to scientists today. For follow-up care the doctors watch the patient closely, and schedule many follow-up appointments, which have you tested regularly. Follow-up treatments depend on where the cancer is, what treatments happened in the past, and the overall health of the patient (“What Happens after

Currently, this matter is being resolved new innovated ways are being studied to help further diagnose and “cure” pancreatic cancer. Something innovated that happened was Onivyde was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration. The new drug's effectiveness was evaluated in studies involving 417 people with advanced pancreatic cancer. People treated with a combination of Onivyde and the anti-cancer drugs lived an average of 1.9 months, longer compared those just treated the anti-cancer drugs (Roberts). Another innovated step that occurred was researchers identified a potential biological marker for detecting pancreatic cancer in its early stages—a protein attached to vesicles that circulate in blood (NCI Staff). All in all, pancreatic cancer is starting to get the attention it needs, but isn’t quite there yet. Pancreatic cancer is a big deal that needs to be resolved, because it has one of the highest death rates of any disease in the United