The Doctor Is In: pancreatic cancer

All right, this morning the doctor is in and we are talking about pancreatic cancer. The National Cancer Institute says that there will be an estimated 67,000 new cases this year. So what are the warning signs? What are the treatments available? Dr. Lavanya Yohanthian from Trinity Health, Michigan joins us now. Doctor, thank you so much for the time. This is obviously one of those cancers that we hear so much about in a negative way. I mean, it's called a death sentence in many cases. Yeah, that's right. First of all, thank you for having me and raising awareness for this disease. And you're absolutely right that pancreatic cancer is one of those that are fraught with a pretty dismal prognosis. The way I like to look at it is that we are making advances, steady progress in this area with different treatment modalities, multidisciplinary collaboration, early detection and screening. So I like to think about it as a disease that is oftentimes associated with bad outcomes, but we're making steady progress. Talk about that progress and some of the things that researchers are excited about, because as you mentioned, over the last 10 years, there are pretty significant advancements. Yeah, so I think one of the things that a lot of people have been talking about recently is diraxonrasib, which is a RAS inhibitor treatment. This is really meant for patients who have metastatic pancreatic cancer and who have failed first-line chemotherapy. So in this particular group of patients, before it was thought that once they fail first-line chemotherapy, their survival is not good and the options for treatment are very low. So once that happened, now they could be assessed for candidacy for this RAS inhibitor, which has been all over the news. It was recently presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the biggest oncology conference that we have, as well as published in New England Journal of Medicine. And this drug, which is taken orally once a day, improved survival in these patients to 13 months compared to six months. That's pretty incredible. So that's doubling, yeah. That is pretty incredible. What are, and I think for a lot of people that get this diagnosis, it happens so late. What are the warning signs? What should people be looking out for? Yeah, I think advocating for yourself. Most of the time, patients know themselves best. Unexplained weight loss, loss of appetite. A lot of the times, pancreatic cancer shows up based on where in the pancreas the tumor's located. So when it's in the head, it blocks up your bile duct, it presents with jaundice, whereas if it's in the tail, sometimes people will have back pain or abdominal pain. Oftentimes, those patients have advanced disease at presentation. New diabetes, just unexplained weight loss. All of those things should alert patients to see their primary care doctor and really get a thorough workup done. We had our beloved Pat Caputo, who worked here for 30 years in the sports department and a well-known sports columnist. He just recently passed away from this disease, and I think a lot of people became aware of it through Pat's journey with it. What do you want people to know if you do get a diagnosis about pancreatic cancer? What do you want them to be left with here today? I think one of the most important things I would say is always get an assessment through a multidisciplinary approach, which we offer at Trinity across Oakland, Livonia, and Ann Arbor. So you want a team of surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists that provide an individualized treatment plan. They look at every aspect of your case to see what can we possibly do. And Trinity is one of the hospital systems that have early access to this drug. It's not FDA-approved yet, but if you call 734-712-HOPE, you'll get put in touch with our nurse navigators who can then put you in touch with an oncologist to assess your candidacy for the drug. So really, I think the takeaway is don't assume that you're not going to be someone that could have various treatment options, and I like to think about it as try your best to get as much information about where you're at and get an individualized treatment plan. What's that phone number again, just for people? So the HOPE line is 734-712-HOPE, H-O-P-E. That will connect you with one of our well-established nurse navigators who will then put you in touch with an oncologist for early access to this drug. That is fantastic news. Doctor, great information. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.