Pancreatic Cancer, Symptoms, Causes, Risk Factor, Diagnosis and Treatment

Table of Contents

Pancreatic cancer
Causes of Pancreatic Cancer
Diagnosing Pancreatic Cancer
Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer

Introduction

Pancreatic cancer is the 11^th more common cancer found in the world, each year almost 8,800 people are diagnosed in UK.

Pancreatic cancer is mostly common in older people, almost half of the cases diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed in people with 75 year or above. People below 40 years are no more likely to get affected by pancreatic cancer. It is known that it affects men and women in the same way.

Pancreatic cancer

At the early stage no symptoms are prominent, which definitely make it difficult to diagnose.

The common symptoms which can be linked with pancreatic cancer are:

Severe pain which can be felt in the stomach or lower back
Sudden weight loss
Jaundice which can be characterized by the whitening of eyes and yellowish skin

But always keep in mind that these symptoms may arise due to some other medical condition as well, so don’t be panic if these appear. However, you can’t ignore these symptoms and call on immediately your doctor so that the disease can be diagnosed earlier. Other noticeable symptoms which are less common are:

Uneven fatigue and loss of appetite
Depression caused due to unknown reasons

Causes of Pancreatic Cancer

The real cause of pancreatic cancer is still a mystery for scientists and doctors, but some common risk factors have been identified which include:

First of we would like to mention the age because it normally occurs in older people
The other common risk factor is the excessive smoking
The other health conditions such as chronic pancreatitis, diabetes, helicobacter pylori infection and stomach ulcer
Some inherited conditions among which he most common is the hereditary pancreatitis

Diagnosing Pancreatic Cancer

The doctor ask about your medical history and advice your general physical examination.

The most common thing which your doctor try to check is, your skin and color of eyes for symptoms of jaundice. Along with these, blood and urine test are also advisable. Abdominal examination is also carried to rule out the possibilities of enlargement of liver.

If you are find to be a suspect for pancreatic cancer then CT scan, ultrasound scan, MRI scan must be done to get clear insight of condition.

Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is difficult to treat. As discussed earlier it is not diagnosed in the early stages so its treatment is not possible because when it is detected it is already at its advance stage. If your tumor is large then treatment is more difficult.

The treatment entirely depends on the location and type of cancer you have. It also depends on how advance the cancer is. Along with these your general health, age and personal preferences are also given attention during treatment. As like all other cancer types the first treatment is to remove the cancer entirely if possible. If this is not possible then efforts will be focused to prevent the cancer from preventing.