Increasing Median Survival in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancer. Developing early screening tools can help in diagnosing pancreatic cancer at earlier stages when surgical resection is still a possibility leading to more years of survival and a potential cure. Here a review is presented about CA 19-9 and some other pancreatic adenocarcinoma serum tumor markers including THBS2, MIC-1, sTRA, CEACAM1, CA 494, Span-1, and PAM4 that show some improvement over CA19-9. A combination of these serum markers in screening tests may yield more sensitive and specific results that can be used for screening high risk as well as the general population. The effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs is limited in pancreatic cancer. There is a likelihood that the combination of standard chemotherapy with natural compounds having anti-cancer potential like curcumin will increase the effectiveness of treatment as well as reduce the toxic side effects of standard chemotherapeutic agents. Another review is presented about the potential use of curcumin with standard chemotherapy in pancreatic cancer to increase median survival in pancreatic cancer in comparatively less toxic, novel ways.