What are the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer

What are the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer? Pancreatic cancer is very likely to occur in the elderly, but rarely in young people. In the United States, pancreatic cancer ranks fourth among the causes of cancer deaths. What are the general symptoms of pancreatic cancer in the early stages? Since most patients are already in the advanced stage of the disease when they are first diagnosed and cannot receive radical surgery, their 5-year survival rate is only about 1% to 4%.

1. General symptoms of early pancreatic cancer:

1. Anorexia, indigestion and weight loss are one of the main early symptoms of pancreatic cancer. Anorexia, indigestion and weight loss account for about 10% of the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer. Some experts believe that decreased appetite, nausea and vomiting, changes in bowel habits and weight loss are the four major early symptoms of pancreatic body and tail cancer, which can be used as a basis for early warning of pancreatic cancer.

2. Upper abdominal discomfort and pain are also one of the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer. It is specifically manifested as upper abdominal pain and unclear discomfort, stuffiness, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, sometimes absent, usually more obvious at night. The discomfort is deep, wide, and vague in nature. Patients are not easy to explain it clearly, and there is a progressive aggravation phenomenon. It gradually turns into dull pain, bloating, and back pain. The abdominal pain of pancreatic head cancer is biased towards the right upper abdomen, and the pain of pancreatic body and tail cancer is biased towards the left upper abdomen. A few people may have pain around the umbilicus. There may be abdominal and back pain in the later stage. And the pain is often related to the body position. It is aggravated when lying on your back, and relieved when sitting, bending over, lying on your side, and bending your knees.

3. Unexplained jaundice may be one of the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer. Obstructive jaundice is the most prominent symptom of pancreatic head cancer, while the body and tail of the pancreas may not have jaundice in the early stage. Jaundice is usually persistent and progressive, and most patients may have itchy skin due to obstructive jaundice, resulting in scratches all over the body. The above symptoms can also occur in hepatitis or biliary diseases, so it is not uncommon for early pancreatic cancer to be misdiagnosed as hepatitis, cholecystitis, or cholelithiasis.

2. Other symptoms of early pancreatic cancer:

In addition to the general symptoms mentioned above, there are some early symptoms of pancreatic cancer that are manifested due to the different locations of the cancer.

1. Pancreatic head cancer can easily compress the common bile duct, block bile secretion, and cause bile to seep into the blood, which is most likely to cause jaundice, liver enlargement, and lighter stool color, like white clay. Generally speaking, pancreatic head cancer is easy to detect in the early stages and has obvious symptoms.

2. The main symptom of pancreatic cancer is pain. Because the pancreatic body is adjacent to the celiac plexus, the lesions can easily invade the nerves. The pain is intermittent or continuous and worsens at night.

3. The symptoms of pancreatic tail cancer are relatively hidden, and pain is rare. In addition to the general weight loss, fatigue, loss of appetite, and indigestion, it sometimes manifests as an abdominal mass, which can easily be misdiagnosed as a left kidney disease.

The clinical symptoms of pancreatic cancer are closely related to the location of the tumor. Since most tumors occur in the head of the pancreas, many patients may have jaundice, pain, nausea and vomiting due to bile duct obstruction during the initial diagnosis. Other common symptoms include weight loss and itching. In addition, patients may also have corresponding symptoms caused by acute pancreatitis, gastrointestinal bleeding, ascites and gastrointestinal obstruction, such as vomiting blood, black stools, abdominal distension and vomiting of gastric contents.

The diagnosis of pancreatic cancer usually requires laboratory tests, imaging tests and pathological examinations. In addition to routine laboratory tests and serum bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase tests, imaging tests and pathological examinations are essential for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Common imaging examinations for diagnosing pancreatic cancer include abdominal ultrasound for exploring dilatation of the bile and pancreatic ducts, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (also known as ERCP) that can display the condition of the pancreas and collect pancreatic secretions for cytological examination, and abdominal CT scans. Tumor tissue biopsy under CT or ultrasound guidance is an important step in establishing the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Certain tumor markers such as CEA or CA1-9 can also be used to diagnose pancreatic cancer (e.g., 70% to 90% of pancreatic cancer patients will have elevated CA1-9). However, tumor markers have low specificity and can only be used as an auxiliary means of diagnosis and to evaluate tumor recurrence or terminal pancreatic cancer, but not for screening pancreatic cancer or other malignant tumors.

Pancreatic cancer is a malignant tumor that is prone to occur in the elderly and rarely occurs in people under the age of 50. In the United States, pancreatic cancer ranks fourth among the causes of cancer deaths. Since most patients are already in the advanced stage of the disease when they are first diagnosed and cannot undergo radical surgery, their 5-year survival rate is only about 1% to 4%. According to statistics in recent years, the incidence of pancreatic cancer in Asia is also high. In China's large and medium-sized cities, coastal developed areas, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the incidence of pancreatic cancer has tended to increase year by year in the past two decades. The number of pancreatic cancer cases in Asian Chinese accounts for about 1.5% of all malignant tumor patients, and the number of deaths accounts for about 3% of all cancer deaths.

Pancreatic malignancies are mostly adenocarcinomas (accounting for about 75%), but the pancreas can sometimes develop rare endocrine tumors, such as insulinomas. More than 70% of pancreatic cancers occur in the head of the pancreas and easily spread to local lymph nodes and nearby organs (such as the liver), and may then spread to bones and lungs through the blood. The development of pancreatic cancer is usually slow. Since the initial symptoms are not obvious and specific, most patients are already terminally ill when diagnosed and cannot receive surgical treatment. Therefore, 90% of patients will die of the disease within a year.

What are the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer? The mortality rate caused by pancreatic cancer is very high, but if it can be treated in time, it will be very helpful in controlling the condition of pancreatic cancer and improving the lives of pancreatic cancer patients.