Did You Know?

• In 2016, pancreatic cancer moved from the 4th leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. to the 3rd, surpassing breast cancer.
• Pancreatic cancer is the 11th most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and the 9th in women.
• It is estimated that in 2016, 53,070 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and 41,780 will die from the disease. Seventy-one percent of patients will die within the first year of diagnosis.
• Pancreatic cancer is the only major cancer with a five-year relative survival rate in the single digits, at just 8 percent.
• African-Americans have the highest incidence rate of pancreatic cancer, between 28 percent and 59 percent higher than the incidence rates for other racial/ethnic groups.
• While overall cancer incidence and death rates are declining, the incidence and death rates for pancreatic cancer are increasing.
• Pancreatic cancer is projected to move past colorectal cancer to become the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States around 2020.
• While surgery (often the Whipple procedure) offers the best chance for survival, fewer than 20 percent of pancreatic cancer cases are diagnosed early enough for surgical intervention. Even with surgery, the disease recurs in approximately 80 percent of these patients, who die within five years of recurrence.

* All information provided is from the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network