Lee died mere months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Hers was a quick and painful death.
Since she had many different cancers, I am more familiar than many with this killer. Whereas recent medical advances brighten the outlook for some victims of cancer, for example, people with certain blood cancers are surviving in spite of their disease, pancreatic cancer is a stone-cold killer.
Currently, a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer imposes an irrevocable death sentence. Pancreatic cancer kills more than 50,000 Americans each year, accounting for about 8 percent of cancer deaths in the United States. Many patients die within a year of diagnosis, and only thirteen percent of people with pancreatic cancer survive for five years. For comparison’s sake, thirty percent of lung cancer patients, another awful disease and the third most common form of cancer, have a five-year survival rate.
To my mind, pancreatic cancer will always be the villain that took my wife away from me. So, whenever I come across any news that could be construed as positive for its victims, I am closely attuned to it.
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A recent New York Times article, ‘Two Drugs Stir Hope for Treatment of Deadly Pancreatic Cancer,’ opines, historically, “when it comes to pancreatic cancer, there are few treatment options, and those that are available often do little…” The article does not mention how, in addition to being intrusive and painful, attempts to treat the disease can be demeaning for patients and family members alike, holding out false glimmers of hope while robbing them of precious time that could be better spent outside the sterile confines of a hospital room.
In one late-stage clinical study involving approximately five hundred patients, a new experimental drug doubled patients’ life expectancy from seven months to more than thirteen months, a “gain… virtually unheard-of in the field,” according to the Timers article. The side effects are said to be “manageable.”
A second clinical study involved a “personalized vaccine using mRNA technology.” Just sixteen patients were involved. Eight showed immune responses, and of these, six survived up to six years. In comparison, only two of the six who did not get an immune response lived this long.
To be sure, these look like baby steps. It is likely that it will still be a long time before the survival rate for pancreatic cancer approaches the rates for other types of cancer.
Of course, if you were to ask a family member of a terminal cancer patient, he or she might say they would be grateful for any additional time. I know I would have been. And it might sound presumptuous to speak for the deceased, but I have a strong suspicion that if I asked Lee, she’d concur.
