Pancreatic cancer patients shortchanged
“I’m going to fight this,” Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek told adoring fans when he shared his pancreatic cancer diagnosis in March. However, most people with Trebek’s cancer aren’t given a fair shot at extending their lifetimes, because of old attitudes the disease isn’t worth treating, a new Canadian study finds.
Of more than 10,000 people diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in Ontario over 11 years, only 38 per cent received chemotherapy, or a combination of chemo and radiation.
One-third didn’t see a medical oncologist — a doctor who specializes in chemotherapy.
That contrasts sharply with high rates of treatment for other advanced cancers. Up to 90 per cent of people with colorectal cancer see a medical oncologist, and the majority receive chemotherapy.
“We have better chemotherapy drugs (for pancreatic cancer) than in the past, but those standards of care aren’t reaching patients,” study author Dr. Natalie Coburn, a surgical oncologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto, said in a statement released with the study.
Advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer, where the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, can be particularly grim. The disease tends to spread before there are obvious symptoms, like upper abdominal pain, or jaundice (the skin turns yellow) when the tumour blocks the bile ducts. There’s no screening for pancreatic cancer, the fourth leading cancer killer in Canada of both men and women. By the time tumours are diagnosed, 80 per cent are inoperable “and have spread beyond what we can offer for cure,” said study co-author Dr. Julie Hallet, a surgical oncologist at Sunnybrook.
However, more modern chemo regimens can extend mean survival for up to a year — meaning half survive for 12 months, and the other half beyond that — compared to three to six months without therapy.
“The outlook has drastically changed, but the stigma still remains that this is a highly fatal cancer and it probably isn’t worth treating,” Hallet said.
She and her co-authors looked at two things: who gets a consult to even discuss options, and how many get treatment.
The study was based on the records of 10,881 people diagnosed with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma, which accounts for about 80 per cent of all cases, between 2005 and 2016.
Overall, about 27 per cent received chemotherapy, and 11 per cent chemo-radiation.
About a third of those diagnosed didn’t see an oncologist. And, even when they did, about 60 per cent didn’t get therapy.
The study didn’t look at why people weren’t assessed or treated. Chemo isn’t indicated for everyone, and some people refuse it, because the side-effects can be toxic. (“That stuff really kicks the slats out of you,” Trebek told an audience of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society when he helped open the group’s new Ottawa headquarters. The Sudbury, Ont., native has also suffered bouts of “deep sadness” following chemo sessions, he told Good Morning America.)
Hallet gets why some people might decline treatment. “But everyone should have the opportunity for treatment,” she said.
The study appears in this week’s issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.