Five-year survival for pancreatic cancer patients has more than doubled in the past decade, thanks to more effective chemotherapy regimens and better patient identification, an expert said.
On the eve of World Pancreatic Cancer Day, Dr. Ricardo Rio-Tinto, president of the Clube Português do Pancreas, spoke to the Portuguese agency about the progress that has been made in this area, the fears associated with the disease and the increase in the incidence of this tumor in younger patients, between 40 and 50 years old, without the classic risk factors: alcohol consumption and smoking.
Although the general prognosis remains poor, there has been a slow but steady increase in 5-year overall survival, which increased from about 5% to more than 11%????????
“In 10, 12 years, five-year survival has more than doubled and we are talking about all patients diagnosed with a tumor in the pancreas,” said the president of the Portuguese Cancer Club, section of the Portuguese Gastroenterology Society.
If growth of this order is achieved in the next 10 years, it means that “around 25% of patients have the ambition to be cured,” he stressed.
“These figures have been growing gradually because we know the tumors better, because we know the patients better, because we diagnose them earlier, we treat them better, because we know which ones need to be operated on, etc.,” he said.
The Champalimaud Foundation researcher said that more and more patients appear with a cyst in the pancreas that was found on an MRI or CT scan that was done for another reason.
“It is a very important group, perhaps representing 20% of all pancreatic tumors, to which we must pay close attention and follow-up,” he argues.
There is another group of patients in whom there is a predisposition associated with heredity and which account for around 10% of all cases of pancreatic cancer.
In some cases, he said, it’s even possible to identify a gene or set of genes that could be responsible for multiple cases in a family.
According to the researcher, the precise identification of these patients has been “the key” to the sharp increase in survival after surgery.
“But we are left with a large group of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and without known risk factors: they do not smoke, do not drink excessively, are young, do not have family members with pancreatic cancer, and do not have pancreatic cysts at risk. . ”, she noted.
Although there is still no answer to this enigma, Ricardo Rio-Tinto says that it may be due to exposure to some “toxic” environmental factors, much more abundant and present today: microplastics, pesticides, fertilizers.
The doctor explained that the only possibility of curing pancreatic cancer is surgery, and in smaller localized tumors, which do not involve ‘vital’ structures and in which immediate surgical resection is possible.
However, he stressed, there has been “a great advance” in the types of chemotherapy that allow, “even in tumors that seem immediately operable”, neoadjuvant chemotherapy that increases the probability of cure.
In Portugal, between 2000 and 2020, the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer grew by around 30%going from about 1,300 new cases a year to 2,000, with “a slight preponderance” in men.
Despite being the 8th most frequent malignant tumor, in some countries it is already the 2nd cause of death from cancer and its diagnosis causes “brutal fear in patients”.
“Normally people feel that this is something fatal and this diagnosis is very obscure” contrary to what happens with many other tumors that were also fatal, such as lung, breast, colon, and today have “a chance of cure Very very big”.
In the case of the pancreatic tumor, he said, “we are still a little further behind,” but “there is good news.”
In the future, he indicated, it will be possible to “perform liquid biopsies for the diagnosis, not only of the pancreas, but of many other tumors.”
“I think this is the way to go,” stressed the expert.
Source: Observadora
