Cases of pancreatic cancer among young people have skyrocketed in recent years, but what has puzzled scientists is that the number of deaths from the disease has not spiked.
A team of American experts may have uncovered a possible reason.
Pancreatic cancer is considered one of the most deadly diseases.
British statistics show that fewer than one in 20 people with pancreatic cancer live more than 10 years after diagnosis.
As a result, experts predict a significant increase in pancreatic deaths among people under 50, comparable to the 2 to 8 percent increase in diagnoses over the past 18 years.
Experts now believe this might not have happened because of a specific type of pancreatic cancer that affects younger people and is easier to detect and treat earlier. .
Pancreatic cancer is a general term for a variety of tumors found in the 25cm, tadpole-shaped organ that helps with both digestion and hormone regulation.
One type, adenocarcinoma, is the most common, accounting for 90% of cases.
At age 43, Becky Baggs received a dire pancreatic diagnosis after a nurse commented that her husband looked like a “minion”, prompting her to undergo tests that later turned out to be jaundice. It turns out. Becky is pictured here with her two children Jacob and Georgie, who were 9 and 8 years old respectively at the time.
This variant causes few or no symptoms until patients suddenly start losing weight and turning yellow, by which time it is too late.
This is why this disease is called the “silent killer”.
But after analyzing the data, experts led by doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that there was no spike in adenocarcinoma among young people.
Instead, this spike was due to another type of pancreatic cancer called endocrine cancer.
In contrast to adenocarcinomas, these are slow-growing, take decades to appear, and are mostly benign, although they can become cancerous.
Furthermore, the authors suspect that this cancer is not actually more common in young people, but that doctors simply have far better tools to detect it.
They believe that the increased use of high-tech medical scans such as CT and MRI (which have improved in sensitivity over the years) has increased the chances of detecting endocrine cancers.
Becky, now 45, knows she is one of the lucky few whose pancreatic cancer was detected early enough to have surgery. She is also part of a growing trend of young women being diagnosed with the disease, a pattern that baffles experts.
These discoveries are often coincidental, and the scans were not directed at the pancreas itself, but were discovered by doctors analyzing the images while investigating another medical problem.
Dr. Gilbert Welch is a researcher in the Department of Surgery and Public Health at Brigham University and an author on the study. Annual report of internal medicinesaid new york times: “The more you imagine, the more these things become obvious.”
Despite guidelines that say small endocrine tumors should be monitored with scans rather than removed with risky surgery, some doctors say it’s better to remove them in younger patients.
They say that because younger patients live longer, it takes longer for these cancers to eventually become fatal.
Dr. Adewole Adamson, an overdiagnosis expert at the University of Texas and co-author of the new study, explained that these calls for action are often driven by the patients themselves.
“Many patients say, ‘Please let me out,'” he says.
“When someone tells you they have cancer, you feel like you have to do something.”
But doctors say the success of this type of intervention in endocrine cancers has not yet been evaluated.
Pancreatic cancer is called the “silent killer” because its subtle signs are detected too late.
Some argue that to present the data more accurately, we should separate endocrine cancer from the far more dangerous adenocarcinoma, and avoid classifying the former as pancreatic cancer.
Becky Baggs, 46, from Colchester, Essex, is one of the people in the UK who has suffered the tragedy of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
The first indication that she had the disease was when her husband casually remarked that she resembled a “minion” (the yellow-shaded character from the Despicable Me movie series). That was one word.
An experienced nurse looked in the mirror and noticed signs of jaundice, yellowing of the skin and eyes, a serious sign that something is terribly wrong with the internal processes of the body.
The mother-of-two felt unwell on Christmas Day 2021, three days before her jaundice started, but she suspected it was COVID-19.
She recalled rushing to the hospital and getting tested, but strongly suspecting the news wasn’t good.
“It all came together and I knew it wasn’t going to be a good diagnosis. That didn’t make it any easier,” she told MailOnline.
Three days later, she received shocking news that her fears were well-founded. She had pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the diseases with the lowest survival rates and, alarmingly, is on the rise. Data source: Cancer Research UK
Fortunately for her, she was one of the lucky few whose cancer was detected at an early stage and surgery was possible.
She underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy, also known as the Whipple procedure. This is a grueling surgery in which cancerous tissue is removed and the surgeon repositions the patient’s digestive system.
Ironically, Becky had prepared pancreatic patients for this procedure many times during her nursing career and described her experience as the “toughest” test of her life.
“It was the hardest 11 days of my life,” she said.
“It’s a terrible surgery. There’s no two ways about it. It completely rebuilds your entire digestive system, so it’s tough, but for me, it wasn’t that bad because I knew what was going to happen.” did.”
Dr Becky, along with cancer experts, is urging people who are experiencing subtle signs of pancreatic cancer to seek advice from their GP.
“I’m worried about other pancreatic cancer patients,” she said.
I’m scared of people thinking, “Oh, I’m just feeling a little sick, but I’m fine, I can’t make an appointment with my doctor, and I’ll just get through this.”
“Then they become very ill and end up in A&E with jaundice, but by then it’s too late.
“If you are concerned about your symptoms, please consult your doctor.”
Pancreatic cancer kills around 10,000 Britons every year, which is roughly equivalent to one death every hour in the UK.
Symptoms of pancreatic cancer include jaundice (yellowing of the whites of the eyes and skin), itchy skin, and dark urine.
Other possible signs include loss of appetite, unintentional weight loss, constipation, and bloating.
Although your symptoms are unlikely to be cancerous, it’s important to see your GP as soon as possible, especially if your symptoms have lasted for more than four weeks.
