Make a Gift to Pancreatic Cancer Research

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States, for men and women. In a single year, more than 56,000 Americans will be diagnosed with the disease, with another 39,000 dying from it. Despite widespread progress on other types of cancer in recent decades, the overall incidence and mortality rates for pancreatic cancer have changed very little.

Without an effective screening method for pancreatic cancer, diagnosis often comes late when the cancer has advanced into a stage where treatment is more difficult. By that time, pancreatic cancer is typically in an aggressive stage. Surgery, for instance, offers people the greatest chance at survival, but diagnosis often comes only after the cancer has spread to areas surrounding the organ. Finally, pancreatic cancer is particularly resistant to chemotherapy and radiation, and there has been little treatment progress of late.

A Reason for Hope

Pancreatic cancer research at the University of Michigan, led by a multidisciplinary team of scientists and clinicians, holds the promise to significantly change these dismal statistics by revolutionizing pancreatic cancer care. The team is attacking the disease on several fronts:

• Developing reliable detection methods (like a simple blood test)
• Identifying new drugs designed to eradicate pancreatic cancer stem cells, which University of Michigan scientists discovered are key to understanding why the disease is so deadly
• Conducting leading-edge molecular diagnostics, sequencing the entire genome of pancreatic tumors to uncover the genetic underpinnings of the cancer's growth
• Creating highly targeted therapies designed to immediately improve outcomes for patients diagnosed today

This work gives pancreatic cancer patients hope as they face down this devastating disease. Even so, rapid progress against pancreatic cancer remains a great challenge-primarily because of scarce research funding. Pancreatic cancer remains an underfunded research area. The National Cancer Institute, the cancer branch of the NIH for instance, distributes just 1.7 percent of its budget to pancreatic cancer research. That means private funding is critical if groundbreaking research at U-M is to fast track to improved ability for early diagnosis and more effective treatments.

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