Pancreatic Cancer Symptoms Guide

Pancreatic Cancer Symptoms

Reason why gastrointestinal symptoms are more often predominate is because Pancreatic Cancer starts growing over the digestive system, important areas of the system.

Pancreatic Cancer symptoms:

Symptoms largely depend on cancer location within the pancreas.

Location matters:

If the pancreatic cancer starts in the head of the pancreas, patients usually suffer from weight loss and skin turns to yellow, also fat appears in the stool. There may be or may not be an abdominal pain. If the pancreatic cancer develops in the body or tail of the pancreas, then patients suffer from the belly pain as well as weight loss. If the cancer develops in the head of pancreas, symptoms develop relatively faster, Compared to when it starts in pancreas body or the tail. Unfortunately symptoms appear only in the late stage, when Pancreatic Cancer survival rate is very low. But still it is not a reason to give up there are Pancreatic Cancer Treatments at every stage of the disease, even if its incurable doctors can manage the pain.

One of the first pancreatic cancer symptoms

to appear is a pain in mid-abdominal, area. And in majority of cases pain progresses to the human back.

Gastrointestinal symptoms:

As the tumor grows, majority of patients (80%) experience abdominal pain. Pain is not persistent, it may come and go.

Some patients experience early fullness and satisfaction from the food as well as swellings in the abdominal area. Pancreatic Cancer may cause nausea, diarrhea ad steatorrhea. Since pancreatic cancer reduces fat digesting system, fat in the stool is observed very often, which may have uncommon smell and float more than usual. As for the color of the stool, it may become lighter, clay-colored and the urine gets darker.

Whole Body symptoms:

Pancreatic Cancer constitutional symptoms are: weight loss, Loss of appetite, Malaise and elevated blood sugar. Some of Pancreatic Cancer patients develop diabetes because of cancer affecting pancreas ability to produce insulin, but the majority of the patients with new diagnosis diabetes, do not of Pancreatic Cancer. Diabetes is also in the list of Pancreatic Cancer Causes.

Skin Symptoms:

Pancreatic Cancer blocks the duct which releases bile into intestine, as a result, Skin and eyes turn yellow, this particular condition is called jaundice. Blockage may cause other symptoms too for example, some patients with Pancreatic Cancer experience uncontrollable itching all over the body.

Rare Pancreatic Cancer symptoms:

One of the rarest conditions of the Pancreatic Cancer is Islet Cell tumors which are developed in the cells of pancreas that produces hormones; tumors can be malignant or benign. This condition causes abdominal pain, vomiting, and nausea as well as weight loss. Islet cell tumors make pancreas to produce excess amount of hormones that can also cause the symptoms:

Insulinomas: Sweating and fainting caused by a low blood sugar, also lightheadedness and anxiety;

Glucagonomas: Diarrhea and thirst and excess urination as well as weight loss.

Gastrinomas: Abdominal pain weight loss and stomach ulcers as well as reflux.

Somatostatinomas: weird smelling stools (with excess amount of fat), abdominal pain and weight loss.

VIPomas: face flushing, abdominal cramping and watery diarrhea.

There are Pancreatic Cancer Symptoms that could help diagnose pancreatic cancer on early stages but the problem is there is no confirmed pattern. But still certain conditions and situations are observed that help diagnosing Pancreatic Cancer.

Some people suddenly lose appetite and develop disgust of the tastes they like; Tastes of cigarettes and coffee etc.

In other cases, 6 month prior to developing the undeniable symptoms some people had appetite loss and sensation of the early fullness, also weakness. It is up most important to see a doctor immediately if you feel you is experiencing symptoms. If found early, Pancreatic Cancer Prognosis is significantly better.

Pancreatic Cancer Treatments

Pancreatic Cancer Treatment options depend on 2 factors: Stage and location of the cancer. First task is a resection of the cancer mass, most often resection is possible when Cancer is localized in pancreas only and hasn’t spread to other organs. If the resection is out of the question, then it is important to prevent cancer spreading elsewhere. If the cancer is advanced too much and not a surgery or any other treatment methods can help, only thing that doctors can do is treat the symptoms, and relieve the pain.

Pancreatic Cancer Treatments:

Alternative treatment is a Radiation Therapy. Is the treatment method in which energy beams are used to destroy cancer mass (cancer cells). This treatment is possible before or after cancer resection. Radiation Therapy quite often is used in combination with Chemotherapy. There are several types of Radiation Therapy; regular method is an external beam radiation, when radiation is used from outside the patient’s body. Another method is brachytherapy when its used inside your body close to the cancer mass. And there is intraoperative radiation when beams are used during the surgery.

Chemotherapy is widely used treatment of any cancer, it’s a drug for killing cancer cells, can be a single drug or a combination of several drugs. Most often Chemotherapy therapy is offered to patients after the surgery.

Another one of Pancreatic Cancer Treatments is a Target Therapy which is more like Chemotherapy but it is used to attack the abnormalities inside the cancer. Drug called Tarceva which blocks the chemical compounds that trigger cancer cells to grow and expand. Tarceva is usually used in combination with chemotherapy. There are other targeted drugs as well which are used in clinical trials.

Clinical Trials, is a studies and tests in order to find a new effective treatments, new drugs and methods of fighting the disease. Gene therapy is one of the most known clinical trials. If one of the clinical trials proves to be effective and without the serious and harmful side effects, it may become new standard of treatments. But sometimes clinical trials have very serious side effects and unfortunately none of them guarantees the complete cure of the disease.

Surgery is the most popular and effective type of Pancreatic Cancer Treatments, depending on the cancer stage.

There are surgeries to remove tumors from in the pancreatic head, surgery is called Whipple, this procedure involves complete resection of the pancreas head and part of intestine duodenum, also gallbladder and bile duct. During the procedure part of the stomach also can be removed. This particular surgery involves certain risk factors, of infection and bleeding

There is also a surgery to remove cancer from the pancreatic tail and small part of the pancreatic body. During this surgery it surgeon may also remove your spleen, this type of surgery also involves certain risks bleeding and infection.

Pancreatic Cancer survival rates

Statistics show that, Pancreatic Cancer survival rates aren’t very good today.

Although, as treatments and diagnosis methods keep improving survival rates get better each year. Most often survival rate numbers indicate to five-year survival rates.

It is accepted that Pancreatic Cancer is the worst kind of cancer, most lethal, since this particular type of cancer is nearly impossible to diagnose at early stages. This happens because Pancreatic Cancer doesn’t actually show any symptoms until it’s too late. Of all other cancer types Pancreatic Cancer has lowest survival rate, less than 5% (5 year survival rate).

In America, this type of cancer is 4^th in the leading cause of cancer deaths. Each year up to 60 thousand people are diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Unfortunately 2/3 of all patients are diagnosed only when cancer is in the metastatic stage and surgical removal of the tumor or any other type of treatment is either ineffective or impossible. Resection can be an option if the cancer isn’t too large or it’s not spread in other organs. Unfortunately pancreaticduodenectomy most often is an option to improve quality of life left and not a cure but in cases when cancer is localized in 1 area it is possible completely cure the patient, but complete cure is extremely rare, most often it gives patients additional 16 to 18 month. After surgery, patents can undergo Chemotherapy which may increase survival rate around 5 years. If the tumor is spread widely, resection can be offered to patients for palliative purposes, even though it won’t cure a patient, palliative surgery help patients manage with pain.

According to Pancreatic Cancer survival rates statistics; this is the most deadly cancer types. Only up to 20% of patient survival rate can be improved with surgical intervention.

Pancreatic Cancer survival Rates are based on statistics of large groups of people, unfortunately it’s not possible to use this data to predict what will happen to patient, in fact there hasn’t been a single case of two exact cases of pancreatic cancer; So, survival rate and disease progressions entirely depends on patients.

It is possible to create a pattern of survival rates by doing some calculations:

From 1995 to 2001

5 year survival rate for Pancreatic Cancer patients was up to 4.6 percent

4.7 For white men and 4.2 for white women

For ethnic African men number is 2.9 percent and ethnic African women 5.6 percent.

Pancreatic Cancer Prognosis

Scientists from all over the country are studying Pancreatic Cancer disease, trying to learn the causes of the disease as well as prevention methods, Also better ways to catch the disease in time and threat it. Along with scientists from hospitals and medical centers, National Cancer Institute is researching the different ways of Pancreatic Cancer treatment, such as Biological therapy and radiation therapy and their combinations. When the scientists find a treatment method with good results, these treatments are used for clinical trials.
Basically Prognosis can be considered as an educated guess, about the current state of the disease and how it’s going to progress farther. Pancreatic Cancer Prognosis answers the most problematic question, about how long does the patient have to live, or what to expect, what are the survival rates, and what are the chances of curing the disease in patient’s current condition. Obviously, for the patients without metastasized condition, (when the cancer is localized only in pancreas) prognosis are better (little over16 percent). For the patients in which cancer has spread but in small areas, prognosis is 7% survival rate. And if the cancer is spread widely, survival rate is minimal 1.8%. Low survival rates and statistics shouldn’t affect patient’s willingness to fight the disease at all costs and try every possible treatment methods.
Diagnosing Pancreatic Cancer at early stages is next to impossible, since the cancer shows no symptoms at early stages. As a result, Pancreatic Cancer diagnoses are often very poor, by the time when diagnosis is possible, it’s already too late for successful treatment, at very least chances are severely lowered, when reaches metastatic condition. 33.700 patients out of 37.170 diagnosed with pancreatic cancer died in United States.
Despite the fact, that modern medicine was able to improve survival rate of the patients diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, still, this majority of cases disease is considered as incurable. According to ACC data reports, one year relative survival rate is 20%, 5 year rate is less than 4 percent. Low survival rates are caused by the fact, that at the time when diagnosis happens, malignancy progresses to the point when tumor removal is already impossible. If the removal is possible then survival rate is 18%-20%. And 5 year survival rate is 10%, if the tumor has been removed completely and it hasn’t spread to lymph nodes, survival rate rises significantly, up to 25%.

Tumor size largely affects Pancreatic Cancer prognosis.

Removal chance are lower if the tumor is large in size, although it is not impossible to remove large tumors, even if the size of the tumor is 4-5cm, still curing by resection is possible.
In cases when cure is impossible, patients experience weakness, pain and weight loss, pain management is available; there are several techniques of pain management used by doctors with experience of working with Pancreatic Cancer patients. Different kinds of drugs, and nerve blockings as well as bile duct abstractions.
In conclusion, even though, Pancreatic Cancer Prognosis and survival rates is not very promising, it definitely keeps getting better each day.

Pancreatic Cancer Causes

Etiology of the Pancreatic Cancer is not an exact Science. Which means there can be no definite answer to what exactly caused this disease. But there principles that allow us understand more about the disease, how it develops and progresses. Studies show us several factors that may affect development of the Pancreatic Cancer.

What exactly is a Pancreatic Cancer? It is a mutated DNA and the cause of these mutations can be inherited from parents, which means that family history of the Pancreatic Cancer takes the place in the list of the Pancreatic Cancer causes. But it doesn’t necessarily mean, if one of the parents had Pancreatic Cancer, child will inherit it.

Inheritance is not the only way to damage DNA, there is also a behavior. For example Cigarette smoke chemicals can damage DNA as well. More precisely carcinogens can damage the gene on the pancreas that is primarily associated with pancreatic cancer. Another cause of the Pancreatic Cancer can be a simple mistake made by our bodies when cells are dividing. They contain copy of the DNA and if by a chance this process damages Pancreatic Cancer Associated cells in the human pancreas, cancer cells may start developing.

Basically Pancreatic Cancer is caused by damaged DNA (mutations) which may happen by inheritance, Cigarette smoke or simply by an accident. But scientific explanations about Pancreatic Cancer Causes are beyond that. There are also risk factors to consider, factors that may cause this type of cancer.

Pancreatic Cancer Causes and risk factors

Cigarette Smoking: It has been concluded that cigarette smoking is one of the most dangerous risk factors of Pancreatic Cancer. Studies show that smoking persons pancreas has a twice a normal chance to develop cancer. But the fact that quitting smoking dramatically reduces risk factor should serve as an extra motivator to quit smoking. Once a person quits smoking, chances of Pancreatic Cancer equals of a non-smoking person’s.

Age: over 80 percent of Pancreatic Cancer patients are 60 to 80 years old, this particular risk factor increases with the age.

Diet: High Cholesterol food, (fried, fatty and meat products) increase the risk of getting Pancreatic Cancer. On the other hand, Vegetables and fruit diets significantly reduce the risk factor.

Gender: Statistics show that Men are more likely to have Pancreatic Cancer is women.

Obesity: Obesity is also one of the major risk factors of the Pancreatic Cancer.

Race: Studies show that African population is more likely to have Pancreatic Cancer.

Diabetes: can be a symptom and a risk factor as well

Chomical Pancreatitis: According to studies, pancreatitis but only a long term pancreatitis may be a risk factor for Pancreatic Cancer

Religious Background: Pancreatic Cancer has been observed in Ahkenazi Jews more than in any other population.

Genetics: Family history is one of the Risk Factors.