Cancer - January 2016 Archives

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: Every year when I get my mammogram, the results are that the breasts are too dense to see small cancers. Why ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Radiation therapy was associated with a lower risk of cancer recurrence in pancreatic cancer surgery patients, making it, like chemotherapy, an important addition to treatment, Mayo Clinic research found. Whether radiotherapy helps patients after pancreatic cancer surgery has been a long-standing question, and the findings suggest that it does, says senior author Christopher Hallemeier, M.D., a radiation oncologist at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. The study is published in the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s  International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics. The researchers studied 458 patients who had pancreatic cancer surgery at Mayo Clinic between March 1987 and January 2011. Of those patients, 378 received chemotherapy and radiation therapy after surgery, and 80 had only chemotherapy after their operations. Eighty percent of those who received chemotherapy and radiation after surgery had no recurrence of cancer within the area targeted by the radiation, the tumor bed and lymph nodes, within five years after diagnosis. That compared with 68 percent of those who had chemotherapy only following their operations. Additionally, patients who received radiotherapy had longer survival times. Over the past five years or so, the trend has been toward providing chemotherapy and radiation before surgery in an increasing number of patients with operable pancreatic cancer, Dr. Hallemeier says. He and his colleagues plan research to study the benefit of that, but first wanted to address the longtime question of whether radiation helps after surgery. “The role of radiation therapy in operable pancreatic cancer has been somewhat controversial. There have been some studies that have shown a benefit and some studies that have not shown a benefit,” Dr. Hallemeier says. Media contact: Sharon Theimer in Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005 or newsbureau@mayo.edu

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: How do doctors determine whether or not chemotherapy or surgery is appropriate for treating pancreatic cancer? Why do some people with a late-stage diagnosis have treatment, while others are told treatment will not help their situation? ANSWER: The treatment plan for each individual with pancreatic cancer is unique to that person’s situation and the stage of the disease when it is diagnosed. But where in the past many people were advised that no treatment was available when cancer had spread outside the pancreas, today improved chemotherapy offers new treatment possibilities for this difficult cancer. Pancreatic cancer is uncommon compared to other kinds of cancer, such as lung, colorectal and breast cancer. Symptoms of pancreatic cancer are relatively nonspecific and can include abdominal or back pain, weight loss, new onset or worsening diabetes, and jaundice or yellowing of the skin. Smoking is the only known significant risk factor, and although a small fraction of patients have a genetic predisposition, the majority of causes are unknown. The lifetime risk of developing the disease for people in the general population is about 1 percent. Unfortunately for those who do get it, pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest kinds of cancer to successfully treat. The five-year survival rate now is just over 7 percent.