Researchers Home In on an Early Diagnostic Marker for Deadly Pancreatic Cancer
Friday, September 18, 2009 - 09:49
in Health & Medicine
The failure to detect pancreatic cancer until after it has progressed to a fatal stage has long been the bane of doctors and the demise of patients. Imaging the out-of-the-way organ with MRI or CT scans often fails to catch tumors and, so far, there are no reliable blood-based markers for the disease. For most patients--including actor Patrick Swayze , who died this week as a result of this aggressive malignancy--abdominal pain, weight loss and jaundice are the disease's first indicators, and their onset usually occurs after the cancer has metastasized, erasing any possible benefit of surgery. [More]