Pancreatic cancer prognosis

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• If you are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at a late stage, you have been diagnosed at stage three or four. 

  The tumour may be larger and spread into surrounding tissues; this is stage three pancreatic cancer. This information is generated from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program.

  A patient’s outcome can be affected by their:

  • Age
  • Disease stage
  • Overall health
  • Access to treatment, pancreatic cancer specialists, clinical trials and supportive care

  What Is the Five-Year Survival Rate for Pancreatic Cancer?

  The currently reported five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is 13%.

  His team’s research demonstrates these centers are more likely to follow National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines to optimize patient outcomes. Because pancreatic cancer is an unusually fibrotic tumor, the group is doing important work that will inform how the cancer reacts to systemic therapies. Cancer Facts & Figures 2025.

  To get the five-year survival rate, numbers must be analyzed over a range of time. It gives detailed information on the diagnostic tests used and the stages of pancreatic cancer. We are determined to improve patient outcomes today and into the future. Firstly, the cancer may have recurred, and a tumour grown again in the same part of the body.

  Information also may be provided in aggregate or limited formats to third parties to guide future pancreatic cancer research and education efforts. Visser notes there hasn’t been much past success in targeting the KRAS mutation, which is present in the majority of pancreatic cancers. They grow faster and are more resistant to systemic therapy interventions, even when diagnosed early.

  Visser says, “Pancreatic cancer has always been a notoriously chemoresistant disease.

  Stored constituent information may be used to inform PanCAN programs and activities. You may be eligible for surgery to remove the cancer and for follow-up treatments to stop it from coming back.

  

  Those percentage points mean that 13 people out of 100, instead of seven people out of 100, will be alive five years after their pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Besides the five-year survival rate, people also measure:

  • Overall survival: the length of time from diagnosis to a patient’s death
  • Progression-free survival: how long a person stays on a treatment without their disease getting worse
  • Disease-free survival: the amount of time a person is believed to be cancer-free, also known as “no evidence of disease”

  These other survival measurements are often used to judge success of clinical trials.

  Why Is Early Detection Important?

  Patients whose disease is diagnosed in its earlier stages have better outcomes.

  Because Stanford is the highest volume medical center for pancreatic cancer operations in California, the gastrointestinal (GI) cancer team members—which includes surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, interventional radiologists, dietitians, and nurses—have broad experience in managing every stage of this disease.

  Stanford Cancer Institute member Brendan Visser, MD, medical director of the Stanford Gastrointestinal Cancer Care Program and section chief of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary (HPB) in the Stanford Department of Surgery, spoke about the challenges inherent in pancreatic cancer treatment and how patient outcomes can be improved.

  “It’s a field that is technically and intellectually challenging.

  Survival varies depending on where the cancer has spread and how large the tumour has grown.

  Patients with stage four pancreatic cancer may survive two to six months, on average.