Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

Treatments for pancreatic cancer in general include those that remove the cancer, those that prevent the cancer from advancing, and those that relieve symptoms. If the pancreatic cancer is discovered in an early stage when there is still a... Full Answer

With the Whipple procedure, surgeons remove the head and sometimes the body of the pancreas, the lower portion of the stomach, the duodenum, and lymph nodes near the pancreas. Surgeons also remove the gallbladder and part of the common bile duct, and... Full Answer

A Whipple procedure is one method of surgically removing the pancreatic cancer when the tumor is located in the head of the pancreas. In this procedure, the head of the pancreas is removed. The gallbladder is also removed, as well as parts of the bile... Full Answer

There have been major advances in the development of a promising pancreatic cancer vaccine at Johns Hopkins. With the experimental vaccine, a cancer patient’s own cells were used to produce large amounts of an immunity-stimulating protein. Early... Full Answer

Surgery can be performed as a curative or palliative measure if the cancer is contained within the pancreas and has not spread to blood vessels, lymph nodes or other organs. This treatment option should be discussed with your physician to see if it is a... Full Answer

As with most high-risk cancers, the treatment of pancreatic cancer generally involves a Medical Oncologist, and some form of chemotherapy for patients who are candidates for this form of therapy. For the 15 to 20% of patients with pancreatic cancer who... Full Answer

There are no medically approved alternative treatments for pancreatitis. There may be alternative ways to reduce certain symptoms of pancreatitis, however. Acupuncture or meditation may help to relieve pain by giving you something else to focus on and... Full Answer

Although alternative treatment options for cancer seem numerous, judging from advertisements on televisions and the Internet, none of these have been shown to have an affect on pancreatic cancer. However, alternative medicine may offer relief from the... Full Answer

Meditation: There is good evidence that various types of meditation may help improve quality of life in cancer patients. Studies have shown benefits for mood, sleep quality, and the stresses of treatment. The specific effects of meditation are not fully... Full Answer

You can take people with stage IV colorectal cancer in their liver, which they’re told it's inoperable, and you give them chemotherapy for several months, and they get such a tremendous, remarkable response that you’d actually consider... Full Answer