Pancreatic Cancer: The Surreptitious killer
The poor outcome of pancreatic cancer (PC) is reflected by the overall less than 5% five year survival. Eighteen hundred people are diagnosed with PC every year in Australia. Approximately 33,730 new cases were expected to be diagnosed in USA in 2006 with 32,300 expected deaths. Mortality closely follows incidence as demonstrated in the 2002 Australian graph (page 2). However, appropriate attention to certain risk factors has the potential to reduce mortality by early diagnosis. Pancreatic cancer is rare before the age of 45 and slightly more common in the male than in the female (1.3:1).