Pancreatic Cancer Surge May Be Less Worrisome Than It Seemed

One of the first warnings is; paper Published in 2021. From 2000 to 2018, there was an unexpected increase in pancreatic cancer among young people in the United States. By the time the disease is discovered, it can be untreatable and a death sentence.

Following the publication of the report by Dr. Srinivas Gadam, a gastroenterologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, researchers began looking into why. Is this increase due to obesity?Ultra-processed foods? Was it a toxin in the environment?

Alternatively, a new study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that the entire alarm may be misplaced.

author of paperThe research team, led by Dr. Vishal R. Patel, a surgical resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, did not dispute the data showing an increased incidence. They report that from 2001 to 2019, the number of young people aged 15 to 39 diagnosed with pancreatic cancer increased sharply. Pancreatic surgery rates more than doubled in women and men.

The problem is that the expected result of an increase in cancer did not occur. As the incidence of pancreatic cancer increases among young people, deaths from pancreatic cancer should also increase. And it wasn’t. The number of young people diagnosed with late-stage cancer did not increase. Instead, the increase was limited to very early-stage cancers.

Many cancers can be left alone without causing any harm, but doctors are finding more and more cancers using increasingly sensitive tools. There is usually no way to know if they are dangerous, so doctors tend to treat them aggressively. But if it hadn’t been discovered, it would never have shown up in mortality statistics.