Pancreatic cancer will become more and more of a concern in the future. Here’s why.
- Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers.
- Currently, there is no cure for pancreatic cancer.
In only 10 to 20% of pancreatic cancers, it is possible to remove the tumor by surgery with the aim of curing the disease, according to the hepatobiliary and endoctrinal digestive surgery department of Cochin hospital. Which means that 80% to 90% of other pancreatic cancers are diagnosed at a late stage, according to the website of the Vidala French medical book for health professionals.
Why is this cancer detected so late? The symptoms of this disease take time to appear: abdominal or back pain, Iaunisse, weight loss, fatigue… When they appear, it is often too late to cure the cancer because the tumor is not operable. In this case, a chemotherapy protocol is undertaken in order to slow down the development of the disease, relieve the symptoms and improve the quality of life of the patients.
Second leading cause of cancer death by 2030
The development of the disease begins in the cells of the pancreas. But over time and if no treatment is carried out, the cancerous cells multiply in an anarchic way. These can also detach from the tumor and reach other parts of the body such as the lymph nodes, the liver or the peritoneum, the membrane that surrounds the stomach… According to a study published in the journal cancer-researchpancreatic cancer could become the second leading cause of cancer death by 2030.
Smoking has often been considered one of the main risk factors for pancreatic cancer. Of course, as theNational Cancer Institute, smoking is indeed linked to the development of this disease. Nevertheless, the authors note that the drop in the number of smokers in the population during this decade was not accompanied by a decrease in the number of pancreatic cancers. They therefore explain that there are other risk factors.
A healthy lifestyle
Obesity, chronic pancreatitis – i.e. inflammation of the pancreas which may be due to excess fat around the pancreas or excessive alcohol consumption – but also diabetes are very big factors. risk of pancreatic cancer. This last is characterized by too high a level of sugar in the blood, hyperglycemia.
To limit the risk of developing this pathology as much as possible, the ideal is therefore to adopt a healthy lifestyle from an early age: do not smoke, consume alcohol reasonably, eat a balanced diet without excess and practice regular activity. physical. Public health France recommends consuming a maximum of two glasses of alcohol per day, not every day and not exceeding ten glasses per week. On the sports side, theWorld Health Organization recommends doing 150 to 300 minutes of moderate sport or at least 75 to 100 minutes of intense physical activity per week.
In 2018, there were 14,184 new cases of pancreatic cancer in France, according to theNational Cancer Institute. It is the ninth most common cancer in men and the seventh in women.
