Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the US and not easy to catch it early as the symptoms are vague
While chilling and relaxing at home, a 71-year-old US Navy veteran began to feel strange symptoms, which she thought were signs of a heart attack. Mary Jo Burkhard, without ignoring it, was alarmed when the pain in her chest and back aggravated and immediately went to a hospital. After doctors ran tests, including a CAT scan, they found it wasn't a heart attack—but a three-inch cancerous tumour on her pancreas.
After an extensive two days of further testing, Jo Bukhard was diagnosed with Stage 2 pancreatic cancer—one of the deadliest forms of cancer. "I was like, 'Oh my god, I'm gonna die,'" Burkhard told CBS News in an interview.
While doctors said her cancer was treatable at that stage, it needed surgery to remove the mass and radiation and chemotherapy to eliminate as many cancerous cells as possible. And since it was a long journey, the military vet decided to endure it.
Jo Bukhard's grueling cancer treatment
According to the National Cancer Institute, pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the US. Experts say it is not easy to catch it early as the symptoms are extremely vague.
Often, pancreatic cancer is only found when a person seeks treatment for another issue. Doctors said in Jo Burkhard's case, she was not feeling the pain even remotely linked to pancreatic cancer. Most people with pancreatic cancer aren't diagnosed until the disease is Stage 4, by which the cancer has spread throughout the body and treatment is unlikely to be an option.
Why is pancreatic cancer difficult to treat?
Pancreatic cancer forms in the cells of the pancreas, the organ that lies behind the lower part of the stomach. It makes enzymes that help digest food and hormones that help manage blood sugar.
According to experts, since the pancreas is located deep inside the body, tumours often go undetected until cancer has spread to other parts of the body—known as metastasis. Doctors say pancreatic cancer cells are particularly evasive and resilient for a number of reasons, including:
- Pancreatic cancer is often asymptomatic in the early stages and almost half of all cases are diagnosed in stage 4.
- Most pancreatic cancers are driven by cell mutations in the KRAS gene, for which no current treatments are available.
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Pancreatic tumours entangle themselves into surrounding blood vessels and tissue, making surgical removal difficult.
- The tumours often cocoon themselves in fibrous tissue that is difficult for chemotherapy drugs to penetrate.
However, for patients like Jo Burkhard, speed is the key to treatment. Just days after being diagnosed, Burkhard began chemotherapy sessions every three days for more than four months. While she struggled with the aftereffects, her treatment worked as chemotherapy had shrunk the tumour to half its size. It was later operated on, and doctors removed the remaining mass.
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