A survey conducted by Pancreatic Cancer Action for the launch of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness found that a shocking 55% of GPs and 46% of patients dismissed their symptoms and that almost half of pancreatic cancer sufferers hadn’t heard of pancreatic cancer prior to their diagnosis.
Pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose and is the fifth deadliest cancer in the UK with an average of 22 people dying from the cancer every day. Relative survival to five years is only 3% due to only 10% of pancreatic cancer sufferers being diagnosed early enough to receive treatment. For those who are not diagnosed in time for surgery life expectancy is between three to six months.
Two pancreatic cancer charities, Pancreatic Cancer Action and Rare Survivor, are hoping to raise awareness of the cancer, both within the general population and medical community to try to improve on numbers of early diagnosis. Symptoms of pancreatic cancer symptoms include abdominal pain and/or back pain, jaundice, unexplained weight loss, nausea and pain when eating.
