The Anonymous Widower

Some Good News on Pancreatic Cancer?

I think this article on the BBC web site may prove to be a glimmer of hope in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer may lurk in the body for many years before patients fall ill, US scientists say

Research hints at earlier opportunities to spot and treat the disease, which is fatal in 95% of cases.

Genetic analysis of tumours by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Johns Hopkins University suggested the first mutations may happen 20 years before they become lethal.

UK survival rates for the disease have not improved in the past 40 years.

The disease is often aggressive and unresponsive to treatment by the time it is diagnosed.

The study, published by the Nature journal, found that tumours appear to be slow growing.

In other words if we could find a test for pancreatic cancer, we might be able to catch people suffering from the disease very early in the growth of the cancer. I know of pancreatic cancer survivors, who were caught very early, so perhaps something might work.

I know that my old University of Liverpool is looking for such a test amongst other pancreas research, so perhaps they are on the right track, if not for a complete cure, but for something that might help.

Let’s hope so, as I wouldn’t want anybody to suffer the same death as my son did from an uncureable cancer.

October 28, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | Health | Cancer, Liverpool