Pancreatic cancer is one of aggressive cancers which do not show any symptom until the disease gets severe. The malignant tumors develop in the tissues of pancreas, a gland located in front of the spine and behind the stomach. The symptoms that might occur including pain in the back and middle or upper abdomen, loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss, jaundice, fatigue, and depression. Blood cloths may also a sign for pancreatic cancer.
If a person has long standing diabetes or chronic pancreatitis, they will have high risk for developing pancreatic cancer. Those who smoke, have familial pancreatic cancer syndromes, or are overweight may also develop this cancer. The African-American race is also prone to this disease. If you don’t have symptoms but you belong to the high-risk groups, it is recommended for you to always have health check with your doctor.
To diagnose this disease, doctors will have the patients to take some tests, including CT scan, MRI, EUS, ERCP, X-ray, biopsy, and laparoscopy. After the test, the doctor will undergo the staging process, which will be related to treatment for pancreatic cancer that the patients will take.
Not only the stage, but the location of the cancer also determines the pancreatic cancer treatment to take. The first goal of pancreatic cancer treatment is the elimination of cancer, one of which is through surgery. Surgery will be chosen as the cure for pancreatic cancer in certain conditions: if pancreatic cancer is located in the head of the pancreas and id the pancreatic cancer is located in pancreatic tail and body. The former will be done through a Whipple procedure, in which the pancreatic head will be removed, as well as the small intestine, gallbladder, and bile duct. Meanwhile, the latter needs distal pancreatectomy, in which the doctor will remove the spleen. But this step carries a risk of bleeding and infection.
Radiotherapy will be an option to destroy cancer, and you can take it before or after surgery. In most cases, radiotherapy will be combined with chemotherapy. Another treatment is targeted treatment in which doctor will drugs that attack specific abnormalities within cancer cells. The pancreatic cancer cures used here is drug erlotinib (Tarceva) that functions to block the cancer chemicals.