Few improvements in pancreatic cancer treatment
Last Updated: 2009-07-29 15:01:19 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In the past 30 years, diagnostic tests for pancreatic cancer have improved, but the prognosis for patients has changed little, a new report indicates.
Cases of pancreatic cancer are on the rise, but it remains unclear whether developments in its treatment have altered the poor prognosis associated with pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Anne-Marie Bouvier and colleagues from Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon, evaluated trends in diagnosis, treatment and outcome of pancreatic cancer in a French population over the past 30 years (1976-2005).
Over this period, there was a dramatic increase in the use of CT scans to diagnose the disease, as well as an increase in the number of patients diagnosed with "early" (stage I or II) disease, the researchers report in the British Journal of Cancer.
The proportion of patients diagnosed with stage I or stage II pancreatic cancer increased from 2.8 percent to 10.4 percent, but most patients continue to be diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Over the last 30 years, more patients underwent surgery plus chemotherapy with the hope of "cure" and rates of death after surgery decreased significantly, from 28 percent in 1976 to 5.1 percent in the most recent decade.
The proportion of patients who received "palliative chemotherapy" quadrupled during the period, from 10.4 percent to 41.8 percent. Palliative chemotherapy is not intended to cure patients of cancer, only to make their lives more tolerable. Nonetheless, this treatment may slightly improve survival.
Survival rates at five years more than doubled during the 30-year period, the researchers note, but it remained at only 4.2 percent overall. Survival was higher for women than for men and for patients younger than 65 years than for older patients.
Obviously, improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer "are still needed," the researchers conclude.
SOURCE: British Journal of Cancer, July 2009.
Dr. Sears comments:
The problem lies in the detection of cancer. Currently it is loss of function. A much better early marker is the increase of inflammation. The sooner you reduce inflammation and its fellow traveler insulin resistance, the less likely the development of any type of cancer will be.