Pancreatic Cancer Treatment At Penn Highlands
For skilled and compassionate pancreatic cancer treatment in Pennsylvania, Penn Highlands Healthcare offers a comprehensive cancer care program. Pancreatic cancer can be difficult to detect and diagnose early, so treatment options will depend on whether the cancer is found before it has spread. Pancreatic cancer cells can metastasize or travel to other parts of the body through your blood or lymphatic system. When that happens, it’s called metastatic pancreatic cancer and can require more aggressive or specialized treatment.
How is Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosed?
Located behind the stomach and in front of the spine, the pancreas is a gland that makes digestive juices and produces hormones that help control blood sugar levels. Most pancreatic cancers start in the cells that make digestive juices. There is no screening test to look for pancreatic cancer in people without symptoms. Because pancreatic cancer may have no symptoms in the early stages, it often is diagnosed at a later stage when the cancer has spread outside the organ, a condition called metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer symptoms that develop in later stages include:
- Jaundice—yellowing of the skin and eyes
- Pain in the back and abdomen
- Unexplained weight loss
- Fatigue
- Loss of appetite
- Light-colored stools
- Dark urine
To check for possible pancreatic cancer, your doctor will do a physical exam and may use blood tests, imaging tests, and biopsy to diagnose it and find out if it has spread.
Radiation Oncology
Penn Highlands Radiation Oncology - Mon ValleyA Service of Penn Highlands DuBois
Radiation Oncology
Penn Highlands Radiation Oncology - Mon ValleyA Service of Penn Highlands DuBois
General Surgery
Hepatobiliary Surgery
Surgical Oncology
Penn Highlands Oncologic and General Surgery - ConnellsvilleA Service of Penn Highlands Mon Valley
Penn Highlands Oncologic and General Surgery - DuBois
Penn Highlands Oncologic and General Surgery - Rostraver Township
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Medical Oncology
Oncology
Radiation Oncology
Penn Highlands Oncology/Hematology - BrookvilleA Service of Penn Highlands DuBois
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Treating Pancreatic Cancer and Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer
If you are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, you’ll be referred to a medical oncologist, who will explain the specifics of your cancer, including stage and treatment options. Because it can be difficult to determine the stage of pancreatic cancer with imaging tests, your oncologist may first need to have a biopsy performed. A biopsy is an examination of the cancer cells taken from the tumor in your pancreas. Surgeons generally can use a minimally invasive technique, called laparoscopy to obtain these cells. In this procedure, the surgeon makes a few small incisions in your abdomen and then uses long, thin instruments guided by a tiny camera to reach the pancreas.
Treatment options vary by person and depend on whether the tumor is contained in just part of the pancreas that can be removed or whether it has invaded the entire pancreas and spread outside of the organ. Along with the size and possible spread of the cancer, your age, health, and treatment preferences will determine the treatment recommendations.
Surgery to remove the cancer is usually only recommended when it hasn’t spread (or metastasized) so the tumor can be removed completely. If the cancer has spread too far to be removed, different surgery procedures may be recommended to relieve symptoms. For instance, a stent (small tube) could be placed inside of the pancreas to open a blocked bile duct blockage. Surgery also can be done to bypass the pancreas. Both stenting and bypass surgeries do not cure the cancer but rather are meant to relieve symptoms.
The use of powerful medicines that kill cancer cells, called chemotherapy, or the use of radiation also may be recommended. These treatments can be used before surgery to shrink a tumor or after surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells that could not be reached. For metastatic pancreatic cancer, chemotherapy can sometimes shrink or slow the cancer growth and help people live longer, even if a cure is not expected. Palliative care can be used to improve quality of life and relieve symptoms in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Targeted therapies are drugs that specifically target changes that help cancer cells grow. Because these drugs target specific genetic changes, they can only be used for some patients. These drugs can be used alone or in combination with chemotherapy
Like targeted therapies, immunotherapy use drugs to help the body’s natural immune system attack the cancer. While there are no immunotherapies currently available to treat pancreatic cancer, researchers do have some in clinical trials.
