Diagnosed with Cancer? Your two greatest challenges are understanding cancer and understanding possible side effects from chemo and radiation. Knowledge is Power!
Learn about conventional, complementary, and integrative therapies.
Dealing with treatment side effects? Learn about evidence-based therapies to alleviate your symptoms.
Click the orange button to the right to learn more.
- You are here:
- Home »
- Blog »
- Pancreatic Cancer »
- Pancreatic Cancer Stage 4 Diagnosis-Is It Treatable?
Pancreatic Cancer Stage 4 Diagnosis-Is It Treatable?
All Pancreatic Cancer at All Stages Is Treatable. The Key is to Figure Out What The Best Treatment is For the Patient
Hello David-
My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer stage 4 on – – . I would like to know if it treatable? I hope and pray she beats it. Tiffany
Hi Tiffany-
I am sorry to learn of your mother’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis. I will try to answer your question as clearly and directly as possible.
All cancer is treatable. The question is what are the risks and benefits are for the patient. Conventional oncology has few is any curative treatment options to offer for advanced pancreatic cancer. Therefore I encourage you combine the best of both conventional and non-conventional therapies for pancreatic cancer.
Conventionally speaking, I encourage you to consider evidence-based “Integrative” therapies. Therapies that research has shown can enhance the efficacy of conventional chemotherapy. Also, consider pre-adjuvant radiation to shrink the pancreatic tumor enough to be able to undergo Whipple surgery.
Further, there are a variety of non-conventional, evidence-based supplements, nutritional, mind-body therapies.
I am both a cancer survivor and cancer coach. Scroll down the page and post a question or a comment. I will reply to you ASAP.
David Emerson
- Cancer Survivor
- Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading
- Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN) as Pancreatic Cancer Therapy
- Neoadjuvant Therapy May Increase Resectability of Pancreatic Cancer
- Pancreatic Cancer- Conventional, Integrative and Non-Conventional Therapies
Adjuvant radiation therapy for pancreatic cancer: a review of the old and the new
“Surgery represents the only potential curative treatment option for patients diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Despite aggressive surgical management for patients deemed to be resectable, rates of local recurrence and/or distant metastases remain high, resulting in poor long-term outcomes…
In an effort to reduce recurrence rates and improve survival for patients having undergone resection, adjuvant therapies (ATs) including chemotherapy and chemoradiation therapy (CRT) have been explored. While adjuvant chemotherapy has been shown to consistently improve outcomes, the data regarding adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) is mixed…”
Therapeutic applications of curcumin for patients with pancreatic cancer
“A number of preclinical studies have demonstrated anticancer effects for curcumin in various types of tumors, including pancreatic cancer. Curcumin has anticancer effects both alone and in combination with other anticancer drugs (e.g., gemcitabine, 5-fluorouracil, and oxaliplatin), and it has been shown to modulate a variety of molecular targets in preclinical models, with more than 30 molecular targets identified to date.
Of these various molecules, NF-κB is thought to be one of the primary targets of curcumin activity. Based on these promising preclinical results, several research groups, including our own, have progressed to testing the anticancer effects of curcumin in clinical trials; however, the poor bioavailability of this agent has been the major challenge for its clinical application. Despite the ingestion of gram-level doses of curcumin, plasma curcumin levels remain at low (ng/mL) levels in patients, which is insufficient to yield the anticancer benefits of curcumin.
This problem has been solved by the development of highly bioavailable forms of curcumin (THERACURMIN®), and higher plasma curcumin levels can now be achieved without increased toxicity in patients with pancreatic cancer. In this article, we review possible therapeutic applications of curcumin in patients with pancreatic cancer.”
Recent advances in radiation therapy of pancreatic cancer
“Pancreatic cancer has a dismal prognosis with an overall survival outcome of just 5% at five years. However, paralleling our improved understanding of the biology of pancreatic cancer, treatment paradigms have also continued to evolve with newer advances in
- surgical techniques,
- chemotherapeutic agents,
- radiation therapy (RT) techniques,
- and immunotherapy paradigms.
RT dose, modality, fraction size, and sequencing are being evaluated actively, and the interplay between RT and immune effects has opened up newer avenues of research.
In this review, we will emphasize recent advances in RT for pancreatic cancer, focusing on preoperative chemoradiation, RT dose escalation, sparing of the spleen to reduce lymphopenia, and combination of RT with immunotherapy.