History, Politics And Current Affairs

Excellent news out of Spain. A team at the Spanish Cancer Research Centre led by oncologist Dr. Mariano Barbacid reports that they’ve achieved complete removal of all tumors of the most common type of pancreatic cancer in trials on rats, by way of a targeted therapy. The results appear to be much more successful than past treatments, however human trials have of course yet to be undertaken. Still, given that pancreatic cancer have terrible survival rates, this could turn out to be a very big deal for those patients in the near future.

Awesome news, I've known several people who died from this.

Good news!

Pancreatic cancer is one of those that can develop slowly and quietly until it explodes. My mum was feeling fine when she started going downhill but no one could explain why. They did a ultrasound of her abdomen and found cancer all over the place. She was gone 2 days later.

Very sad to hear that Rocket J Squirrel. Rest in peace to your mom

Seconded, Rest in Peace to your mom. Cancer is a terrible thing.

It killed my MIL in 5 months

Pancreatic cancer Has taken friends snd family members.

Our prayers are with you all

Pancreatic cancer is rough because we don’t have good screening tests like we do for breast cancer, colon cancer or prostate cancer. So it’s sadly often diagnosed in the metastatic phase.

The good news is that we are getting better at fighting cancer and beating it every day, even when it has metastasized. Currently we have something like a combined 70% survival rate for all cancers, and it keeps getting better.

This is said not to minimize pain and loss (BT, DT, got the t-shirt too), but to provide hope and reassurance that things are getting better. Not as fast as we like, but the odds are a lot better than we often feel when hearing that diagnosis.