At a young age, Jack Benny showed promise as a violin prodigy. He eventually took his talent on the vaudeville circuit.
for 15 percent to 25 percent called a distal pancreatectomy.) with pancreatic cancer survived
of pancreatic cancer patients. “The Whipple is a very technically five years. Thirty years later, the
But although surgery can challenging procedure, and it has a five-year survival rate rose to
improve quality of life, it rarely long recovery time,” notes Mayer. about 5 percent.
eliminates the cancer. In most “It rarely gets rid of the cancer A major difficulty in treating
surgeries, doctors perform a entirely, unless it’s been caught at pancreatic cancer is that the
Whipple procedure, also known a very early stage.” cells are particularly resistant to
as a pancreaticoduodenectomy. Surgical techniques and scanning known chemotherapy treatments,
The surgeon removes the head technology have certainly according to Mayer. After a
of the pancreas, most of the improved since Benny’s time, but diagnosis, patients are usually
duodenum (the segment of the these advances haven’t translated treated with gemcitabine (Gemzar),
small intestine that’s adjacent into any real improvements in sometimes in conjunction with
to the stomach), a portion of survival. “The bad news is that, other drugs like cisplatin or
the bile duct and sometimes in terms of patient survival, fluorouracil, also known as 5-FU.
a portion of the stomach. The things really haven’t improved But the drugs rarely have dramatic
doctor then reconstructs the that much,” says Eileen O’Reilly, effects. “You don’t see results
digestive tract. (If the cancer is a medical oncologist at Memorial like you do in other cancers, like
on the tail of the pancreas, the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in some lymphomas, where the
surgeon generally removes the New York City. In 1974, about cancer just seems to melt away,”
cancer with a simpler procedure 3 percent of patients diagnosed continued on page 63
CR | Page No. 47 | www.CRmagazine.org
