Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery Thursday at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to remove a cancerous tumor in her pancreas.
Justice Ginsburg had her cancer identified in late January during a routine annual physical examination carried out at the National Institute of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The computed tomography performed on her revealed the tumor was 1 cm in diameter and was located in the center of the pancreas.
Justice Ginsburg, age 75, was treated for colon cancer in 1999. Because the pancreatic cancer was discovered in its earliest stages, her chances of survival are very good. However, it’s worth mentioning that the overall outlook for patients with cancer of the pancreas is generally poor, with an overall 5-year survival rate of less than 4 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute.
If the cancer is caught in its early stages, meaning stage I or II, patients can undergo surgery to remove the tumor increasing their chances of survival (five years) up to 24 percent. Only about 7 percent of pancreatic cancers are detected at an early stage and, fortunately, Justice Ginsburg is one of these cases.
“This new diagnosis is unfortunate, and we take hope in reports that this was apparently an early stage of disease, and wish her well, offer our support and prayers, and want to encourage her in what we know is going to be a challenging course of therapy,” said Otis W. Brawley, MD, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Pancreas cancer was diagnosed in fewer than 38,000 people last year. The disease is hard to diagnose because it has no symptoms in its early stages. There can be pain in the upper abdomen or back, loss of appetite and/or weight loss, nausea and vomiting, jaundice and weakness, but these symptoms are specific to other medical problems as well.
“There’s no real screening test for it. There are markers that are being developed and there are studies that are ongoing, but it's not like lung cancer where you can take an X-ray of a person's lungs. There are screenings, but they present radiation risks and there are MRIs, which are expensive,” Dr. Avram Cooperman, surgical director for the Pancreas and Biliary Center at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan told FOXNews.com.
What causes pancreatic cancer no one knows for sure. However, there are several factors that can contribute to the disease such as tobacco use, obesity, physical inactivity, chronic pancreatitis, diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver.
The diet is also one more reason of concern when speaking of pancreatic cancer. The American Cancer Society says that rates of the disease are higher in countries where high-fat diets are typical and Americans are especially consumers of high-fat foods, which increases their chance of developing pancreatic cancer. In fact, cancer of the exocrine pancreas is currently the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the US for both men and women, the Cancer Society estimates.
