Focus on Pancreatic Cancer
You should frankly discuss the risks and benefits of surgery with your doctor before making a decision.
Making Decisions about Pancreatic Cancer Treatment
The best treatment results are obtained if surgery can be included as part of the treatment when pancreatic cancer is found at an early stage, before it has spread. Despite the great increase in research into pancreatic cancer, however, early detection is uncommon. Disease-related side effects may make a person very ill, again limiting treatment options. Even so, treatment aimed at controlling symptoms and preventing additional harm may increase quality of life.
Chemotherapy Provides Longer Survival than Enzyme Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer
In a clinical trial testing an experimental enzyme regimen against gemcitabine-based chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer, people receiving chemotherapy lived an average of 9.7 months longer. The results are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Exploring Your Options for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment
It is hard to stage pancreatic cancer accurately by imaging tests. Doctors must do their best to decide before surgery whether there is a good chance the cancer can be completely removed. Surgeons usually consider a pancreatic cancer resectable (completely removable by surgery) if it is staged as T1, T2, or T3. That means it doesn’t extend far beyond the pancreas, especially into nearby large blood vessels (T4). There is no accurate way to assess the lymph node spread of the tumor before surgery.
