19 Nov 2020

World Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Day 2020

Thursday 19 November 2020 is World Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Day. Here at Cromos Pharma we are proud to play our part in supporting clinical trials aimed at finding better treatments for pancreatic cancers.

Increasing incidence and death rates

Worldwide the incidence and death rates of pancreatic cancer are on the increase. Each day over 1000 people around the world will be told that they have pancreatic cancer. It remains one of the cancers with the poorest prognosis, with an overall 5-year survival rate of about 5%, with little difference between high-income countries and low-income countries. In 2018, pancreatic cancer was estimated as the seventh leading cause of cancer death in both sexes worldwide.

Symptom awareness

As with all cancers early detection is central to effective treatment. This is why knowing the symptoms is really important. These include:

Mid-back pain
Unexplained weight loss
Loss of appetite
Stomach pain
Indigestion
New onset diabetes
Jaundice (yellowing of eyes or skin)
Change in stools

Early detection

The best chance for successful treatment of pancreatic cancer is early detection. Ongoing research is focused on developing better diagnostics and screening tools to catch the disease at its early stages before it spreads.

New directions in clinical trials

Many new research developments relating to pancreatic cancer are based on identifying and examining damaged or abnormal genes which cause uncontrolled cell growth in cancers. DNA sequencing and mutational analysis are used to look for genetic changes and this information in turn can be used to develop treatments that target these changes. Numerous clinical trials are currently exploring new treatments and vaccines which offer some hope for those affected by pancreatic cancer.