Article
A regular health check is your foremost shield against a wide array of ailments.
Pancreatic Cancer
What is pancreatic cancer?
Pancreatic Cancer refers to the Cancer that can originates in the pancreas. The pancreas is the organ that is responsible for secreting enzymes that aid the digestive process; it helps regulate the body metabolism. The best case for treatment of pancreatic cancer is to detect the disease early. The disease spreads very quickly and thereby don’t allow any time for successful treatment, if it is not detected early.
What are the causes & risk factors of pancreatic cancer?
Pancreatic Cancer is caused by the genetic mutation of cells turning them from normal to abnormal cells in the pancreas. The exact cause of the mutation is yet unascertained. Some of the factors that increase the risk of pancreatic cancer are enumerated below:
- Obesity & excess body weight
- Type-2 diabetes
- High salt diet
- Low consumption of fruits & vegetables
- Family history of pancreatic cancer
- Excessive smoking
What are the signs & symptoms of pancreatic cancer?
The common symptoms of Pancreatic Cancer can be enumerated as the following
- Persistent abdominal pain or discomfort
- Loss of appetite
- Unexplained weight loss
- Onset of depression
- Blood clots in the body
How can we prevent pancreatic cancer?
Pancreatic cancer is a very rare and aggressive form of cancer and therefore it is important to take all measures for its prevention. A healthy lifestyle with adequate exercise, healthy diet and management of weight helps reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer to a large extent. Likewise, quitting or staying away from smoking, reducing alcohol intake and keeping sugar levels in check is also helpful in reducing the risk of pancreatic cancer.
What are the treatment options for pancreatic cancer?
Given that pancreatic cancer is an aggressive cancer form, the treatment options themselves have limitations. In most cases, early detection the cancer improves treatment options as well as treatment outcomes. For pancreatic cancer it is very hard to detect the condition early. Also, recurrence rates are high which nullify the previous treatment efforts.
Surgery is the most common employed and effective treatment options for pancreatic cancer. Some of the surgery types include:
- Removal of tumors from pancreas head
- Removal of tumors from pancreas body & tail
- Removal of the entire pancreases
- Surgery to arrest pancreatic cancer from spreading to nearby blood vessels
