Learn the Basics About Pancreatic Cancer
- Pancreatic cancer is the most deadly of major cancers, having the lowest 5 year survival rate at just 11%. 89% of patients diagnosed will not last 5 years.
- About half (52%) of patients are diagnosed at a distant stage, for which 5-year survival is 3%.
- Even scarier, 74% will not make it even a single year.
- The cause of most pancreatic cancer is unknown.
- Less than 20% of patients are candidates for surgery because the cancer has usually spread beyond the pancreas by the time it is diagnosed.
- Pancreatic cancer is the 3rd leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States surpassing breast cancer. It is expected to become the 2nd leading cause of cancer-related death in the US by the year 2020, surpassing colorectal cancer.
- Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer death largely because there are no early detection tools, no scans, and no blood tests to find the disease early.
Projected Cancer-related Deaths
*Source for statistics: American Cancer Society: Cancer Facts & Figures
**Source for graph data: Pancreatic Cancer Action Network research study; PANCREATIC TO SURPASS BREAST AND COLON CANCER TO BECOME THE SECOND LEADING CAUSE OF CANCER DEATH AROUND 2020;
Lola Rahib, Benjamin D. Smith, Rhonda Aizenberg, Allison B. Rosenzweig, Julie M. Fleshman and Lynn M. Matrisian;
DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-0155 Published June 2014; Note: Supplementary data for this graph are available at Cancer Research Online
(http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org).
**Source for graph data: Pancreatic Cancer Action Network research study; PANCREATIC TO SURPASS BREAST AND COLON CANCER TO BECOME THE SECOND LEADING CAUSE OF CANCER DEATH AROUND 2020;
Lola Rahib, Benjamin D. Smith, Rhonda Aizenberg, Allison B. Rosenzweig, Julie M. Fleshman and Lynn M. Matrisian;
DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-0155 Published June 2014; Note: Supplementary data for this graph are available at Cancer Research Online
(http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org).
