Pancreatic Cancer, the ‘Silent’ Disease
- “The Bachelorette” star Hannah Brown, 28, recounts her pancreatic cancer journey in her memoir. She recalls the experience causing her so much pain she even struggled to use the bathroom. However, a tumor the size of an egg was ultimately removed from her pancreas, vastly improving her prognosis.
- Pancreatic cancer is one of the more difficult diseases to treat because symptoms usually don’t present themselves until the cancer has spread or metastasized. Once symptoms present themselves, according to the National Cancer Institute, they may include weight gain, back pain, and jaundice.
- Dr. Anirban Maitra, Co-Leader of the Pancreatic Cancer Moon Shot at MD Anderson Cancer Center, says, “Around eighty percent of pancreatic cancer patients already have advanced disease by the time they’re diagnosed, severely limiting treatment options. Just twenty percent of patients have their cancer caught early enough to make them a candidate for surgery, the only way pancreatic cancer can be cured.”
- Dr. Allyson Ocean, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center, explained that pancreatic cancer is difficult to treat because the cancer cells have a barrier called the stroma, which prevents cancer medications, including chemotherapy and radiation, from targeting and killing cancer cells.
Popular “Bachelorette” star Hannah Brown, 28, reached great heights in the beauty pageant world, but her journey was not without adversity. She endured a brave yet painful pancreatic cancer battle at a young age.
“I had a really crazy scare when I was little. I got really sick, really fast where – I still think it’s like a weird medical mystery of what caused them to find it,” Brown said in her memoir recounting her cancer journey, Bachelor Nation reports.
Brown was in the fifth grade when her health started declining. She went to the doctor, where she underwent a full body scan, but initially doctors found nothing to explain her pains.
However, further examination with an MRI revealed she had a tumor “the size of an egg” on her pancreas, according to Page 6.
“They sent me for a biopsy, and a day or so later, my dad got a call with the results not from our regular doctor but from an oncologist. The tumor was malignant,” she said.
Pancreatic cancer is a type of cancer that forms in the pancreas. It is more difficult to treat because symptoms usually don’t present until the cancer has spread or metastasized. Symptoms may include weight gain, back pain, and jaundice, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Allyson Ocean, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center, explained that pancreatic cancer is difficult to treat because the cancer cells have a barrier called the stroma, which prevents cancer medications, including chemotherapy and radiation, from targeting and killing cancer cells.
RELATED: TV host Maria Menounos’s pancreatic cancer journey.
She underwent surgery to treat her pancreatic cancer.
“On the day of my surgery, I wasn’t scared about what was going to happen to me. At all. Even though my mother was in tears and my dad looked as worried as I’d ever seen him in my life as the nurses came to wheel me into the operating room, I looked up at my mom from my hospital bed and said, ‘Mama, I’m going to be okay,” Brown wrote in her book.
“I had an encased malignant tumor. I hate to say it because there’s people that have really gone through the battle of cancer, and I was very fortunate that my doctor was able to get out my encased tumor fully,” Brown said.
According to the National Institutes of Health, an encased tumor is “inseparable from the vessel” with more than 180 degrees of contact.
Brown said she did not need additional treatment once the tumor was removed.
“There was a chance we’d have to go through radiation and chemotherapy, they said, depending on what the surgeon found once they got me into the operating room. But miraculously, I didn’t need either one,” she said.
Follow-up scans returned with no evidence of the disease, and she said she’s been “cancer-free” ever since. Her story is incredibly inspiring and offers hope for other cancer warriors possibly on similar journeys.
RELATED: See the experimental therapy used to treat former Senator Harry Reid’s pancreatic cancer.
Patient Information on Pancreatic Cancer
How to Cope with a Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis
Pancreatic cancer is tricky because symptoms often do not present themselves until the cancer has already progressed.
Dr. Anirban Maitra, Co-Leader of the Pancreatic Cancer Moon Shot at MD Anderson Cancer Center, says, “Around eighty percent of pancreatic cancer patients already have advanced disease by the time they’re diagnosed, severely limiting treatment options. Just twenty percent of patients have their cancer caught early enough to make them a candidate for surgery, the only way pancreatic cancer can be cured.”
According to research published in PubMed, people at increased risk of pancreatic cancer can undergo genetic testing to better ascertain their risk.
People with a family history of pancreatic cancer from a close relative fall into the high-risk category and should discuss screening options with their doctor. You are also at risk if you have inherited or genetic cancer syndrome.
Some tests can be performed if you are at high risk, and they are an endoscopic ultrasound or an MRI scan.
Other pancreatic cancer risk factors include things you can change and others you’re born with. The National Cancer Institute lists common risk factors as:
- Family History.
- Inherited genetic syndromes
- Tobacco use
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Chronic pancreatitis
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