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What is pancreatic cancer?
Pancreatic cancer is one of the malignant neoplasms of the pancreas, which is a tumor growth of atypical cells of the glandular or squamous epithelium lining the acinar elements or the ductal system. Despite the achievements of modern medicine in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, pancreatic cancer continues to be one of the unsolved problems of oncology. This is due to the peculiarities of the anatomical location of the organ in combination with the fairly rapid development and progression of its tumor transformation.
According to statistics from various sources, the prevalence of pancreatic cancer is from 9 to 11 cases per 100 population. Mostly people of middle and older age are ill: from 40 to 75 years. There are cases of the disease at a younger and older age. The male population is sick almost twice as often as the female population. Pancreatic cancer is much more common in the developed countries of Europe, North America, Russia, Canada than in African, South American and Asian countries.
The frequency of lesions of the oncological process of different parts of the pancreas is not the same. In more than 90% of cases, tumors with localization in the head of the organ are diagnosed. The remaining 10% is evenly distributed between the body and tail of the pancreas. As for specific types of cancer, they depend on the primary cellular substrate of the tumor and can be:
Ductal adenocarcinoma (75% to 90% incidence);
Giant cell adenocarcinoma (prevalence is about 6%);
Glandular squamous cell carcinoma (registered in 3-4% of patients);
Mucinous adenocarcinoma (incidence 1-3%);
Rare types of cancerous tumors of pancreatic tissues: insuloma, glucagonoma, gastrinoma (occupy no more than 1% in the total statistics).
How long do people with pancreatic cancer live?
The disease belongs to the category of the most serious pathology, since it is quite difficult to diagnose in the early stages of development. Surgical technologies and chemotherapy carried out under a radical oncological treatment program are far from always well tolerated by patients due to trauma and aggressiveness towards the body. The combination of all these factors minimizes the chances of patients to survive. The median (average) life expectancy among people with established pancreatic cancer is 6 months to a year. No more than 1-5% of patients manage to survive the five-year milestone.
The disease, detected in the early stages, has a slightly more favorable prognosis, but they depend little on the timeliness of the treatment. The operation, due to its great complexity, often ends in death in the early or late postoperative period.
Such disappointing data raise pancreatic cancer to a special category of oncological diseases. No other type of cancer has such sad statistics. In recent years, there has been a trend towards an increase in the incidence, while maintaining poor rates of early diagnosis. In 85-90% of cases, the disease is detected in the later stages, when a cure becomes impossible. Early diagnosis of the disease is hampered by the long asymptomatic course of cancer and its deep location with retroperitoneal localization, which makes it invisible even to the most modern research methods. Early detection of pancreatic cancer often becomes an incidental finding during diagnostic procedures for other diseases.
Symptoms of pancreatic cancer
Despite the poor statistics of pancreatic cancer, in no case should we refuse to fight it. After all, such a path will definitely be a dead end. Early diagnosis of the disease can help a sick person get into those 1-5% of patients with a five-year survival rate. After all, there are cases of life expectancy after the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and more than ten years.
Therefore, despair is unacceptable. The usual vigilance, which should not be manic, combined with an attentive attitude to all changes occurring in the body, will help to identify the disease at an early stage and take active measures to combat it.
Symptoms of pancreatic cancer include:
Epigastric and deep pain in the lower back and left hypochondrium. May have different intensities. Its appearance marks the progression of the disease. The dependence is directly proportional: the more intense the pain syndrome, the more severe the stage of the pathological process;
Loss of appetite. Occurs almost from the first stages of the disease and gradually intensifies;
Symptoms of diabetes – thirst, constant dry mouth, polyuria (an increase in the amount of daily urine). The manifestation of pancreatic cancer in 15% of cases occurs precisely from such symptoms;
Frequent thrombophlebitis of the lower extremities. Sometimes the first manifestation of pancreatic cancer is persistent or recurrent inflammation of the superficial veins of the lower extremities for no apparent reason (absence of varicose veins, injuries or other risk factors for the development of vascular pathology);
Enlargement of the abdomen in size. It rarely acts as the first sign of the disease, but in advanced cases it always occurs. The appearance of such a symptom is associated with metastatic lesions of the peritoneum (carcinomatosis) and the accumulation of ascitic fluid in the abdominal cavity.
The first signs of pancreatic cancer
Early signs include:
Bloating and discomfort in the stomach (epigastric region). Refers to the earliest signs of the disease, observed in more than 30% of patients;
Malaise and unmotivated general weakness is another early symptom of the disease in 25% of cases;
Weight loss for no apparent reason. 98% of patients note this symptom;
Nausea with occasional vomiting and other digestive disturbances. This symptom is noted in 45-50% of cases;
Yellowness of the skin. One of the most frequent and the only signs of the disease (in 65% of cases) with the localization of the tumor process in the head of the organ. Jaundice is mechanical in nature, and occurs as a result of compression of the common bile duct, which passes through the thickness of the pancreatic tissues. Yellowing of the skin can appear even with a small size of the tumor, while it still does not go beyond the organ. But in most cases, the presence of the first symptoms of the disease in the form of jaundice characterizes severe forms of cancer.
[Video] Dr. Berg – The first symptoms of pancreatic cancer: