- 7/24 Live Call Center
Understand Pancreatic Cancer, Causes and Evaluation, including early warning signs, major risk factors, and life-saving diagnostic imaging procedures.
Send us all your questions or requests, and our expert team will assist you.
Doctors often call pancreatic cancer an insidious disease because it is hard to detect early. The pancreas is deep in the abdomen and surrounded by other important organs. It also has a large reserve, so a tumor can grow quite large before it causes any clear symptoms. Unlike skin cancer, which you can see, or breast cancer, which you might feel, pancreatic cancer stays hidden in its early stages.
When symptoms do emerge, they are often vague and non-specific, mimicking a host of benign gastrointestinal conditions such as gastritis, peptic ulcers, or irritable bowel syndrome. This overlap usually leads to a process of elimination in primary care, where more common ailments are treated first. It is usually only when these initial treatments fail to resolve the issue that further imaging is investigated. This latency period between symptom onset and definitive diagnosis is a critical window that modern medicine aims to shorten through education and awareness of subtle physiological changes.
The nature of the symptoms depends heavily on the tumor’s location within the gland. As mentioned previously, the pancreas has a head, body, and tail. Tumors located in the head of the pancreas are more likely to cause symptoms earlier than those in the body or tail because of the anatomical proximity to the common bile duct. Blockage of this duct leads to immediate and visible systemic changes, whereas tumors in the tail may grow silently until they impinge on nerves or adjacent organs.
One of the most characteristic signs of pancreatic cancer, particularly for tumors in the head of the pancreas, is painless jaundice. This occurs when the tumor compresses the common bile duct, preventing bile from draining into the intestine. The bile pigments accumulate in the blood, causing the skin and the whites of the eyes to turn yellow. Along with skin discoloration, patients may notice dark urine resembling tea color and pale, clay-colored stools. These changes occur because bilirubin is being filtered by the kidneys rather than excreted in the stool. Pruritus, or generalized itching of the skin, is another secondary effect of bile salt accumulation.
Abdominal pain is another prevalent symptom, often described as a dull discomfort in the upper abdomen that may radiate to the back. This pain occurs when the tumor invades the rich network of nerves surrounding the pancreas, known as the celiac plexus. The pain may be worse after eating or when lying down, and may be slightly relieved by leaning forward. Unexplained weight loss is also a hallmark of pancreatic malignancy. This weight loss is multifactorial, resulting from a loss of appetite (anorexia), the tumor’s metabolic consumption of energy (cachexia), and the lack of digestive enzymes leading to malabsorption of nutrients.
Digestive problems are also common. If the tumor blocks the pancreatic duct, digestive enzymes cannot get to the intestine. This causes exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, which leads to bloating, gas, and fatty, floating stools that smell bad and are hard to flush. Another warning sign is sudden diabetes in someone with no family history and a normal weight. This suggests the tumor is affecting the pancreas’s ability to make or use insulin.
We do not always know what starts the first mutation in a pancreatic cell, but research has found several important risk factors for the disease. Some risk factors can be changed, like those related to lifestyle and environment. Cigarette smoking is the biggest preventable risk factor for pancreatic cancer. Chemicals from tobacco smoke enter the blood and are processed by the pancreas, causing cell damage. Smokers are about twice as likely to get pancreatic cancer as non-smokers.
Obesity and physical inactivity also play a substantial role. Adipose tissue is not merely a storage depot for fat; it is biologically active, producing inflammation-promoting cytokines and hormones that can fuel cancer growth. Long-standing diabetes type 2 diabetes is both a risk factor and a potential early symptom. Individuals who have had diabetes for many years are at a slightly increased risk, likely due to chronic hyperinsulinemia and inflammation.
Chronic pancreatitis, which is long-term inflammation of the pancreas, also raises the risk of cancer. It is often linked to heavy drinking or smoking, but can also run in families. The ongoing damage and repair in the pancreas makes DNA mistakes more likely. Diet matters too—eating a lot of red and processed meats and not enough fruits and vegetables can increase risk, though not as much as smoking or obesity.
While most pancreatic cancers are sporadic, approximately ten percent of cases are thought to have a familial or hereditary basis. Understanding family history is a crucial component of the risk assessment. Hereditary Pancreatic Cancer is defined as when two or more first-degree relatives in a family have been diagnosed with the disease. In such cases, genetic counseling and testing are strongly recommended to identify potential germline mutations.
Certain genetic syndromes raise the risk of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The best known are BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, which are linked to breast and ovarian cancer but also increase the risk for pancreatic and prostate cancer. Another example is FAMMM syndrome, caused by changes in the p16/CDKN2A gene, which raises the risk for both melanoma and pancreatic cancer.
Lynch Syndrome, primarily associated with colorectal cancer, and Peutz-Jeghers syndrome, characterized by polyps in the digestive tract, also elevate pancreatic cancer risk. Hereditary Pancreatitis, caused by mutations in the PRSS1 gene, leads to recurrent inflammation starting in childhood and carries a very high lifetime risk of pancreatic cancer. Identifying these genetic markers is transformative, as it enables rigorous screening protocols using endoscopic ultrasound or MRI for high-risk individuals to detect the disease at a pre-invasive or early stage.
Send us all your questions or requests, and our expert team will assist you.
The pancreas is located deep in the abdomen, lying directly in front of the spinal column. As a tumor grows, it can press against the spine or infiltrate the celiac plexus, a dense network of nerves located behind the pancreas that transmits pain signals perceived as radiating into the back.
Yes, jaundice typically occurs only when a tumor is located in the head of the pancreas, where it can block the common bile duct. Tumors located in the body or tail of the pancreas generally do not obstruct the bile duct until very late stages, so patients with these tumors often do not present with jaundice.
Yes, chronic pancreatitis, which is long-term inflammation of the pancreas, is a known risk factor. The continuous cycle of inflammation and tissue repair increases the likelihood of genetic mutations. However, a single acute attack of pancreatitis does not necessarily increase the long-term risk of cancer.
New-onset diabetes in a person over the age of fifty who has no other risk factors, like obesity or family history, can be an early warning sign. In these cases, the cancer causes diabetes by disrupting insulin production, appearing before the tumor is visible on standard imaging.
Most pancreatic cysts are benign and are not cancerous. However, certain types of cysts, known as mucinous cysts, can become cancerous over time. These are often discovered incidentally during scans for other issues and require specialist evaluation to determine whether they are benign or pre-malignant.
Almost 90% of cancer-related deaths result from metastatic disease, which happens when cancer spreads from its original site to other parts of the body. Understanding
Nearly 1 in 5 cancer patients see their cancer come back, often because the cancer has spread without being caught early. This makes it crucial
Your Comparison List (you must select at least 2 packages)
