Pancreatic cancer is many diseases rolled into one

30 October, 2012

Pancreatic cancer has gained much attention after the legendary Apple-co-founder Steve Jobs lost his life to the disease. It is a kind of cancer that tops the mortality rate of all the cancers. The survival rate of this cancer has not improved over the past 40 years. Pancreatic cancer is a kind of cancer which constitutes many diseases, as per new research.

A RESEARCH done by the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), University of Queensland, says that pancreatic cancer is not a single disease but a combination of many diseases, and the patients who seemingly have the same cancer, might need to be treated differently. The research was done by 100 researchers on 100 sequenced genomes of pancreatic tumors. These pancreatic tumors were then compared to normal tissues to know the genetic change that leads to cancer.

Andrew Biankin, professor at Garvan Institute of Medical Research, says told healthindia website, “In this study, we found a set of genes, the axon guidance pathway that is frequently damaged in pancreatic cancer patients and is associated with a potentially poorer outcome for those patients.” He also said that, the set of genes can act as a new marker for pancreatic cancer that can be used for the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is a kind of cancer where the uncontrolled cell growth starts in the pancreas and forms tumors. The tumors then interferes with the functioning of pancreas. The tumors are of two types - benign tumors and malignant tumors, the malignant tumors are more dangerous over the benign tumors. The pancreatic cancer is categorized depending on its affect on the exocrine and endocrine functions of the pancreas.

The symptoms of pancreatic cancer can be quite varied and mainly depends on the location of the cancer. The symptoms of the pancreatic cancer includes pain in upper abdomen, yellowing of skin and eyes and darkening of the urine (jaundice), nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, weakness, significant weight loss, alcoholic stools and steatorrhea. The symptoms of pancreatic cancer have numerous other causes which makes it difficult to diagnose, reported medicalnewstoday.

The treatment of pancreatic cancer depends on the stage of the cancer, health background, age and other personal characteristics. The treatment of pancreatic cancer is possible only if it is detected in its early stages and the most common treatments include chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. The medications used for pancreatic cancer are Gemcitabine (Gemzar) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), these drugs are used during chemotherapy. Another medication for pancreatic cancer which can be taken orally is erlotinib (Tarceva). This drug has helped some patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.