Pancreatic cancer: experts worried about the progression of the disease

It’s a cancer that we don’t talk about much. However, pancreatic cancer claims more and more victims every year around the world. A trend that cannot be denied, since the number of new cases increases on average by 3% each year. Experts even estimate that by 2023, this type of cancer could become the second deadliest cancer in Europe and the United States after lung cancer.

What is pancreatic cancer?

Pancreatic cancer affects the gland that is the pancreas, an organ located deep in our abdomen, behind the stomach.

In the majority of cases (90%), the cancer will be of the exocrine type, also called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The other forms of cancer are much rarer (ampullomas, cystadenomas, endocrine tumours, papillary or mucinous intraductal tumours). Finally, there are family forms of pancreatic cancer, with or without a genetic anomaly.

The incidence of pancreatic cancer is on the rise, particularly in women, with nearly 15,000 cases per year.

What are the causes of pancreatic cancer?

So how can this constant increase in cases be explained? Pancreatic cancer is mainly caused by several risk factors, very common in Western societies:

1. The age, the cancer declaring itself around 65 or 70 years;
2. Smoking;
3. The increase in overweight and obesity;
4. Diabetes is also a risk factor;
5. Chronic pancreatitis, which is an inflammation of the pancreas;
6. Not to mention the ultra-processed food, which probably plays a role in the disease.

Other elements, finally, are also suspected of playing a role in its triggering, such as the intestinal microbiota or exposure to pesticides.

Rarely early disease detection

Long silent, pancreatic cancer is too rarely discovered at an early stage. On the contrary, the disease is generally well advanced when the first symptoms appear, such as abdominal pain or significant weight loss.

The risk at this time is the spread of the disease throughout the body, via metastases. On average, half of pancreatic cancers are discovered at this stage, they are then inoperable. In 30% of cases, even if the cancer is local, the operation will not be possible because of the blood vessels near the tumour. As a result, the prognosis of pancreatic cancer does not exceed 8% survival at 5 years, for operable patients.

What about disease detection and treatment?

Faced with such a finding, it seems logical to promote screening for this disease, for the people most at risk: those with chronic pancreatitis or people who have had a member of their entourage affected by this type of cancer. This would make it possible to offer surgery to more patients, which can be supplemented by chemotherapy.

Currently, for advanced cases, chemotherapy alone – or associated with radiotherapy – is the reference treatment. Immunotherapy, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be working so far.

Early detection of the disease remains truly an essential element for the continuation of patient care and considerably improves patient survival, which increases to 35% at 5 years, in this case.