MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The recent death of Jeopardy's Alex Trebek has reminded many of the importance of paying attention to one's health.
Trebek died from pancreatic cancer. Local 24 News Reporter Brittani Moncrease spoke with a surgeon at Baptist Memorial Hospital about the seriousness of the disease.
"Awareness is one of the biggest things we have to have done in our world of pancreas cancer."
Those are the words of Baptist Memorial Hospital's Dr. Stephen Behrman. Thus, awareness is what Local 24 News is providing.
It is one of the most common and aggressive cancers, but it is not often discussed.
“The most common type is what we call pancreatic adenocarcinoma. About 50 to 60,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with this kind of cancer every year,” said Dr. Stephen Behrman, Baptist Memorial Hospital Cancer Center Surgeon.
Dr. Behrman said there has been progress in treating pancreatic cancer, but there is still a long road ahead.
“It remains a lethal disease,” said Dr. Behrman. “Essentially, only 5% to 10% of those diagnosed with pancreas cancer will be alive five years later.”
This year, we lost three trailblazers to the disease: Congressman John Lewis, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Jeopardy's Alex Trebek.
“It affects all ethnicities. There’s really no ethnic predominance. There is some data suggesting that it does occur at earlier ages in the African American population for reasons that we don’t quite understand,” said Dr. Behrman.
The pancreas has two main functions. They are to make both insulin which controls our blood sugar and enzymes that help us digest food. Dr. Behrman explained some of the major symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
“Unexplained weight loss,” said Dr. Behrman. "New onset diabetes in an otherwise healthy individual.”
At Baptist, doctors have been using immunotherapy, where the body's own immune system attacks the cancer, and improving treatment to lesser known related cancers.
“In every patient that we’ve treated so far, we have destroyed almost all the cancer at the time that it was removed from surgery," said Dr. Behrman.
That is another step closer to saving more lives.
“We do cure people. That’s very important because there is hope on the horizon,” said Dr. Behrman.
