Pancreatic cancer fatalities set to rise

World Health Matters by Gary Finnegan – Italy – Death rates from pancreatic cancer are predicted to increase in men and women in 2014 and beyond, according to a comprehensive study published in the leading cancer journal Annals of Oncology.

The study shows that the proportion of deaths due to any sort of cancer is expected to fall overall in Europe in 2014. There are some variations between sexes and countries, however, pancreatic cancer is the only one where increased death rates are predicted for both men and women this year.

“Our predictions for 2014 confirm that pancreatic death rates are continuing to increase overall,” said Professor Carlo La Vecchia, professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Milan, Italy.

“This year we predict that 41,300 men and 41,000 women will die from pancreatic cancer – an age standardised rate of 8.0 and 5.6 deaths respectively per 100,000 of the population,” he said.

This represents a small but steady increase since the beginning of this century; between 2000-2004 death rates from the disease were 7.6 per 100,000 men and 5.0 per 100,000 women.

“The increased death rate is cause for concern, because the prognosis for this tumour is bleak, with less than five percent of pancreatic cancer patients surviving for five years after diagnosis,” Prof La Vecchia said.

As so few patients survive, the increase in deaths is very closely related to the increase in incidence of this disease. This makes pancreatic cancer a priority for finding better ways to prevent and control it and better treatments, according to the researchers.

Tobacco, obesity, diabetes, high alcohol intake and a family history of pancreatic cancer are all recognised risk factors for the disease.

“To date, we have no promising treatment for pancreatic cancer. Prevention remains, therefore, the only possibility, with smoking cessation first, plus control of overweight and diabetes. However, tobacco accounts for less than a third of all cases of pancreatic cancer, and all the other causes together account for another ten percent. More work needs to be done to discover other possible causes,” said Prof La Vecchia.

The study predicts that 742,500 men and 581,100 women will die from cancer in 2014 in the 27 countries of the European Union.

Although the actual absolute numbers have increased when compared with 2009 due to the growing numbers of elderly people, the rate of people who die from the disease has declined from 148.3 male and 89.1 female deaths per 100,000 in 2009 to 138.1 deaths and 84.7 per 100,000 predicted for 2014. Therefore, since 2009 there has been 7% fall among men and 5% fall among women.