When a media person is affected or dies as a result of a serious disease, the awareness of the prevention and treatment of a specific ailment grows in society. Now doctors are inundated with questions about pancreatic examinations.
When Adam Darski fell ill with leukemia, organizations that search for donors for bone marrow transplants saw a huge increase in the number of new applications. When Angelina Jolie announced publicly that she had undergone a preventive double mastectomy, the clinics were crowded with women who decided to test for the presence of a mutation in the BRCA1 gene that promotes the development of breast cancer. Now doctors are seeing a similar increase in interest in pancreatic cancer and other pancreatic diseases.
Pancreatic cancer is extremely difficult to treat, among other things because it does not show symptoms until an advanced stage. Once a patient develops symptoms such as acute abdominal pain, jaundice, loss of appetite and nausea, diarrhea, he or she is carefully examined for cancer. But is there anything you can do before the disease develops enough to be visible?
The answer to this question is yes. Once a year, prophylactic ultrasound of the abdominal cavity is very helpful in catching pancreatic diseases. It will allow to detect anatomical changes in the organ. If its enlargement or tumor occurs, it is an indication for further diagnostic tests in this direction. It is worth noting that ultrasound helps in detecting other diseases of internal organs, and performing the examination privately costs about PLN 80, so it is worth remembering about a routine visit to the doctor every year.
People at risk should remember about preventive examinations. It includes smokers, people who consume alcohol regularly, people with diabetes, the obese, patients with chronic pancreatitis, and all people with a family history of pancreatic diseases.
Based on: http://natemat.pl/