Published Jan 18, 2024

Finally Some Hope For The Disease That Took ‘Jeopardy’ Host Alex Trebek— 13% Uptick in Five-Year Survival Rate For Pancreatic Cancer

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Remembering Alex Trabek

“Jeopardy” host Alex Trabeck passed away after a 20-month battle with stage four pancreatic cancer at age 80. Now, just years after his passing, there’s new hope in the fight against pancreatic cancer as new statistics have revealed a 13% uptick in the five-year survival rate.
Pancreatic cancer is a type of cancer that forms in the pancreas. It is more challenging to treat because symptoms usually don’t present themselves until the cancer has spread or metastasized. Symptoms may include weight gain, back pain, and jaundice.
Early-stage pancreatic cancer tumors don’t appear on imaging scans, and people typically don’t experience symptoms until the disease has progressed. The pancreas’ location in the abdomen makes it harder to find tumors.
Treatment options for pancreatic cancer may include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy.

For anyone battling the disease that took the life of “Jeopardy” host Alex Trabeck at age 80, there’s new hope in the fight against pancreatic cancer as new statistics have revealed a 13% uptick in the five-year survival rate.

The beloved Canadian-American game show host, who remained hopeful throughout his cancer journey, passed away on November 8, 2020, after fighting advanced pancreatic cancer for 20 months. Now, more than two years after his death, pancreatic cancer, which as been dubbed the “silent” disease due to symptoms rarely showing up until it has advanced and metastasized (spread) to other parts of the body, seems more beatable than ever.

According to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Facts & Figures 2024, shared this week, the 5-year relative survival rate for pancreatic cancer is now estimated to be 13%.

The ACS’s report concluded, “The 5-year relative survival rate for all cancers combined has increased from 49% for diagnoses during the mid-1970s to 69% during 2013–2019. Current survival is highest for cancers of the thyroid (99%), prostate (97%), testis (95%), and melanoma (94%) and lowest for cancers of the pancreas (13%), liver and esophagus (22%), and lung (25%).

“Although screening has improved survival through earlier diagnosis of malignancies before symptoms arise, it further influences survival rates for breast, prostate, and lung cancers because of lead-time bias and the detection of indolent cancers, which is likely also a factor for thyroid and other cancers commonly detected incidentally through imaging.”

Following the new data release, experts with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) pointed out how the new five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is more than double the rate from 10 years ago, which was estimated to be 6%

“The trend in survival rates is primarily driven by patients diagnosed with localized disease and better management of patients diagnosed at earlier stages,” PanCan experts explained.

PanCAN president and CEO Julie Fleshmansaid in a statement, “This is good news. We are seeing more patients being diagnosed at earlier stages and they are living longer.

“However, not enough progress is being made for patients diagnosed with metastatic disease and we need to continue to find better treatment options for those patients.”

American Cancer Society’s new report revealed approximately 66,440 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2024, and the prediction of 51,750 pancreatic cancer deaths.

“The third-leading cause of cancer death in men and women combined is pancreatic cancer, for which mortality has increased slowly by 0.3% per year since 2000 in men (after decreasing in previous decades) and, in women, since at least 1975, mirroring incidence patterns,” the ACS states.

As for the increase in deaths and cases, including the rise in pancreatic cancer cases among younger women, the reasoning behind this isn’t known. However, possible factors could be due to obesity in the U.S., as well as changes in racial/ethnic demographics across the country, PanCAN experts explained.

PanCAN’s chief science officer Lynn Matrisian, PhD, MBA, said in a statement, “We have seen better management of people who are considered high risk and better survival of those with localized disease, most likely due to the increased use and improvements in treatments available before (neoadjuvant) and after (adjuvant) surgery.

“PanCAN’s research priorities are to find an early detection strategy and accelerate treatments for (pancreatic cancer) patients. And we are dedicated to increasing awareness of symptoms and risk factors of pancreatic cancer.”

Alex Trebek’s Cancer Battle

Alex Trebek died of pancreatic cancer after a year and a half of battling pancreatic cancer, an aggressive form of cancer. While some celebrities choose to keep their cancer battles private, the “Jeopardy” star openly spoke about his treatment process with the public, and in doing so, educated millions on the disease.

While hosting an episode of “Jeopardy!” in March 2019, Trebek shared with fans that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and would immediately start pursuing treatment.

Despite the difficult journey, he remained the host of the TV trivia show and would keep viewers up to date on his progress periodically. At the time of his diagnosis, the one-year survival rate of pancreatic cancer was just 18%, but in June 2020 he made a special announcement that he’s “beating the odds” by surpassing the one-year-survival rate.

In addition to sharing good news, Trebek was also extremely open about the side-effects he experienced as a result of chemotherapy, and how it affected his mental state significantly at times. He later turned to an experimental therapy, developed by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, which attempts to use multiple parts of the immune system to destroy tumors.

Trebek’s transparency made a huge impact in educating the public on pancreatic cancer, and made people more vigilant in spotting symptoms early.

In fact, one “Jeopardy!” viewer said Trebek “saved his life” when the TV show host shared symptoms he experienced before his diagnosis, and the viewer realized he was also experiencing these symptoms. As a result, the viewer’s pancreatic cancer was caught at an early and treatable stage.

Learning about Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease that is difficult to detect because symptoms, including jaundice and weight loss, typically present at a later stage in the cancer’s development. In a previous interview with SurvivorNet, Dr. Anirban Maitra, the co-leader of the Pancreatic Cancer Moon Shot at MD Anderson Cancer Center, explains what he typically sees when patients develop this disease.

“Because the pancreas is inside the abdomen often doesn’t have symptoms that would tell you that something is wrong with your pancreas,” he says. “By the time individuals walk into the clinic with symptoms like jaundice, weight loss, back pain or diabetes, it’s often very late in the stage of the disease.”

Detecting Pancreatic Cancer Early Is Crucial

Parents, siblings and children of someone with pancreatic cancer are considered high risk for developing the disease because they are first-degree relatives of the individual. PGVs (pathogenic germline variants) are changes in reproductive cells (sperm or egg) that become part of the DNA in the cells of the offspring. Germline variants are passed from parents to their children, and are associated with increased risks of several cancer types, including pancreatic, ovarian and breast cancers. Germline mutations in ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CKDN2A, PALB2, PRSS1, STK11 and TP53 are associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

Jessica Everett, a genetic counselor at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, encourages people in this category to look into possible screening options.

“If you’re concerned about pancreatic cancer in your family, start by talking to a genetic counselor to learn more about your risk and what options you have,” Everett said.

In addition, note that up to ten percent of pancreatic cancer cases are caused by inherited genetic syndromes. So, if two or more members of your family have had pancreatic cancer, or if you have pancreatic cysts, it’s worth asking your doctor to check for pancreatic cancer since you’re at high risk.

Progress in Pancreatic Cancer

Progress has been made over the last few years in the world of pancreatic cancer treatments. One clinical trial recently found that the drug Onivyde, in combination with chemotherapy in the so-called Nalirifox regimen, helped patients live longer compared with chemotherapy in previously untreated patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC), according to Ipsen, the pharmaceutical company that bought the drug.

“The prognosis for people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is extremely poor and we plan to submit these new findings to the regulatory authority as, if approved, we believe this regimen could offer up an important new treatment option for people living with an aggressive and hard-to-treat cancer,” Howard Mayer, Executive Vice President and Head of Research and Development for Ipsen, said. “We thank the patients who participated in the study, their families and their healthcare teams.”

The drug is currently approved in the U.S., Europe, and Asia in combination with fluorouracil and leucovorin as a treatment for mPDAC after disease progression and following gemcitabine-based therapy.

Another example of progress being made comes in the form of immunotherapy, a type of cancer treatment that uses your own immune system to fight cancer.

“Up until now, immunotherapy hasn’t had a big role,” Dr. Allyson Ocean, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet.

Dr. Allyson Ocean explains why pancreatic cancer is so hard to treat.

A clinical trial led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and sponsored by the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, found “combination of chemotherapy with an immunotherapy meant to unleash the anticancer capacity of the immune system was effective against one of the hardest targets in cancer care, pancreatic cancer,” said Penn Medicine.

“The researchers found that in 34 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer randomized to receive the immunotherapy nivolumab with two chemotherapy drugs, nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine, had a one-year survival rate of 57.7 percent, significantly greater than the historical average of 35 percent with chemotherapy alone,” the institution said.

Dr. Benjamin Musher, the director of medical oncology at the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, recently said there were currently multiple “home-grown clinical trials testing novel immunotherapies in all stages of pancreatic cancer studies underway at Baylor St. Luke’s.” But only about 5 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer participate in such studies.

“We know that we are not going to improve outcomes without more patients enrolling,” Musher said.

In addition, there are immunotherapy clinical trial innovations being made to allow for multiple immunotherapeutic approaches to be tested and compared to one or several standard-of-care options within trials. In other words, “investigational treatments can be added or dropped from the trial over time, depending on preclinical and clinical evidence.”

“We’re encouraged by the trend toward more innovative clinical trial designs to improve the drug development process and ultimately lead to better patient outcomes,” PanCAN Chief Science Officer Lynn Matrisian said in a recent article from the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

Clinical trials, in general, are research studies that compare the most effective known treatment for a specific type or stage of a disease with a new approach.

Dr. Beth Karlan, a gynecologic oncologist with UCLA Health, previously told SurvivorNet that clinical trials can play an important role for some patients’ treatment, but they also serve a larger purpose.

Clinical Trials Can be Life-Saving for Some

“Clinical trials hopefully can benefit you, but it’s also providing very, very vital information to the whole scientific community about the effectiveness of these treatments,” Dr. Karlan said. “We need everyone to be partners with us if we’re ever going to truly cure cancer or prevent people from having to die from cancer.”

That being said, there is no guarantee you’ll receive more effective treatment than the standard of care, and clinical trials certainly aren’t right for everyone. You should always talk with your doctor(s) before getting involved in one. Some risks to consider are:

The risk of harm and/or side effects due to experimental treatments
Researchers may be unaware of some potential side effects for experimental treatments
The treatment may not work for you, even if it has worked for others

But if you’ve already decided that a clinical trial is right for you or you’re just beginning to explore your treatment options, you should know that SurvivorNet has a tool for you. The SurvivorNet Clinical Trial Finder: an A.I. driven tool for patients to find clinical trial options for treatment.

The tool is built on top of clinicaltrials.gov, a database maintained by the U.S. government that compiles privately and publicly funded clinical trials conducted around the world, and gives access to more than 100,000+ individual clinical trials, updated daily.

“Clinical trials are critical to the development of new therapies, and as we live through this extraordinary revolution in genomics, immunotherapy and targeted therapy, it’s clear that one of the most pressing needs for patients, clinical trials sponsors, and researchers is simply a better way to find patients,” SurvivorNet CEO Steve Alperin said.

“Even one percent more people successfully enrolled in clinical trials can change the world.”

Questions for Your Doctor

If you are facing a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, you may have questions but are unsure how to get the answers you need. SurvivorNet suggests asking your doctor the following to kickstart your journey to more solid answers.

What type of pancreatic cancer do I have?
Has my cancer spread beyond my pancreas? If so, where has it spread, and what is the stage of the disease?
What is my prognosis?
What are my treatment options?
What side effects should I expect after undergoing treatment?
Will insurance cover my recommended treatment?