Pancreatic cancer: Malignant cells that claimed a creator

While the world mourns the death Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, it is also time to take a look at the killer. Even though it was not officially announced by Apple in its statement about the exact cause of its Jobs’ death today, we all know the legendary technocrat was battling pancreatic cancer since 2004. In simple terms pancreatic cancer is a cancer of the pancreas. Data available from Time Healthland shows, this variant of cancer is a fast spreading one and “only about 4% of patients can expect to survive five years after their diagnosis”. In US alone, 44, 000 new cases are diagnosed and a scary 37,000 are killed by it. Pancreatic cancer is broadly defined into two types - whether it affects the exocrine or endocrine functions of the pancreas. Jobs suffered from the tumor in his endocrine glands. A distinction exists between the two depending on different risk factors, causes, symptoms, diagnostic tests, treatments, and prognoses, the MedicalNewsTodaysaid. [caption id=“attachment_100836” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“An image of Steve Jobs is seen on the Apple homepage. Romeo Ranoco/Reuters”]  [/caption] The Pancreatic Cancer India said that this cancer is rising in developing countries including India. But all is not dark all the way. The website does mention that cases of pancreatic cancer in India is low (0.5-2.4 per 100,000 men and 0.2-1.8 per 100,000 women).  It is mostly seen as per data available in the urban male population in west and north India. In 2001, 14,230 Indians suffered from the disease and the trend is on the rise. In September 2011 alone, four well-known people across the globe died of pancreatic cancer as per information sourced from Wikipedia. Very recently,  Ralph M Steinman, 68, Canadian immunologist, who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine 2011 died of pancreatic cancer. Hungarian comedian József Böröczky, 63, too lost the battle against the disease last month. Sam DeLuca, 75, American football player and broadcaster (New York Jets), also loft his fight against pancreatic cancer in September this year. Finnish author Annika Idström, 63, met with the same fate in her struggle against the disease. However, even in this gloomy scenario, all is not lost in this eternal battle of humanity against cancer. There are survivors of pancreatic cancers who live long and thrive on life. As wypeace rightly put the spirit in his post on Cancer Survivors Network in March this year: “my mother had surgery in 1975 and is still living!”