Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsPancreatic Cancer StagesSurvival RatesSurvival FactorsWhat You Can Do
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
Pancreatic Cancer Stages
Survival Rates
Survival Factors
What You Can Do
The pancreatic cancer survival rate is one of the lowest of common cancers. As a result, pancreatic cancer is one of the most feared diagnoses. Most people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are no longer alive five years after diagnosis. For all stages of pancreatic cancer, the one-year relative survival is 28.8% and the five-year rate is 7.9%.
Pancreatic cancer is so deadly because it’s difficult to screen thepancreasfor cancers. Symptoms of pancreatic cancer are also mild, so tumors there often get diagnosed late. About half of all pancreatic cancers have advanced to stage 4 when diagnosed—meaning they are very difficult to treat because they’ve already metastasized (spread) to other organs and can’t be treated with curative surgery.
The American Cancer Society predicted 57,600 pancreatic cancer diagnoses in 2020, and 47,050 deaths.It’s slightly more common in men than women, and it gets more common as we get older.
Let’s walk through the survival rates for pancreatic cancer and get a better idea of what influences them.
ThitareeSarmkasat / iStock / Getty Images
The system has three components.
While some doctors use the TNM staging system, others prefer to categorize pancreatic cancer into four buckets.
Another term that factors into cancer’s diagnosis, treatment, and staging is the tumor’s grade. Doctors will examine the cancerous cells and tissues taken from surgery or a biopsy in the lab and compare how they look to how normal cells look and give them a grade.
Cancer has four grades: grade 1 (low grade), grade 2 (intermediate grade), grade 3 (high grade), and grade 4 (undifferentiated), based on how it looks. If a tumor is low-grade, its cells usually look pretty normal or well-differentiated, and they are typically slower-growing.
A high-grade tumor is likely to be more aggressive, look less like a normal cell, and spread quickly. Doctors call these undifferentiated or poorly differentiated tumor cells because they lack the features and structures of normal cells and tissues.
Survival rates help doctors estimate how long a person will survive based on the diagnosis given. The cancer-specific survival rate is the percentage of people with a particular diagnosis who survived until a specific time. Doctors frequently talk about survival within a five-year time frame, but you’ll also hear one-year, two-year, and 10-year survival rates.
Some people live much longer than the survival statistics would suggest. Survival rates can only tell you how other patients fared, not howyouwill fare. They also may not reflect thelatest treatments.
You can find cancer survival rates in the National Cancer Institute’sSurveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Programdatabase. Registries like SEER typically use a three-stage approach:
Factors That Influence Survival
If you’ve beendiagnosed with pancreatic cancer, there may not be much you can do to alter outcome based solely on lifestyle changes. However, eat a healthy diet and keep active if you can. It is possible that these types of changes can improve general health and performance status, which can lead to better outcomes, not to mention a better quality of life.
If you’re looking to prevent pancreatic cancer (or any other negative health outcomes), it’s always a good time to quit smoking (and drinking, too!). After 10 years, your pancreatic cancer risk will be the same as a non-smoker.Sadly, if you’ve already got a diagnosis, there’s no evidence that quitting smoking actually increases survival times, though it would likely make you feel better.
Losing weight might also sound like a good idea, and it would be if you’re trying to prevent pancreatic cancer, diabetes, and other health problems. But if you’re already diagnosed, it’s not wise to embark on a weight-loss program while undergoing chemotherapy.
What you can do is make sure you’re eating the right foods and you have the right medications to help you digest food. Pancreatic cancer patients often need to be prescribeddigestive enzymesto help with digestion.
Before embarking on any lifestyle intervention, speak with your oncologist.
A Word From Verywell
Pancreatic cancer is one of the toughest diagnoses someone can receive. Focus on education and being an advocate for your own care. Enlist family and friends to help you move forward. Now is the time to lean on your support network.
15 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Khanal N, Upadhyay S, Dahal S, Bhatt VR, Silberstein PT.Systemic therapy in stage IV pancreatic cancer: a population-based analysis using the National Cancer Data Base.Ther Adv Med Oncol. 2015;7(4):198-205. doi:10.1177/1758834015579313
American Cancer Society.Key statistics for pancreatic cancer.
Rawla P, Sunkara T, Gaduputi V.Epidemiology of pancreatic cancer: Global trends, etiology and risk ractors.World J Oncol. 2019;10(1):10-27. doi:10.14740/wjon1166
American Joint Committee on Cancer.Cancer staging systems.
American Cancer Society.Pancreatic Cancer Stages.
National Cancer Institute.Tumor grade.
Yuan C, Morales-Oyarvide V, Babic A, et. al.Cigarette smoking and pancreatic cancer survival.Journal of Clinical Oncology.2017;35:16:1822-1828. doi:10.1200/JCO.2016.71.2026
Zhang S, Wang C, Huang H. et al.Effects of alcohol drinking and smoking on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma mortality: A retrospective cohort study consisting of 1783 patients.Sci Rep.2017;7,9572. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-08794-1
Jacobs EJ, Newton CC, Patel AV, et. al.Abstract 3281: The association between body mass index (BMI) and risk of pancreatic cancer depends on age at BMI assessment.Cancer Res.2019(79)(13 Supplement):3281. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2019-3281
Toriola AT, Stolzenberg-Solomon R, Dalidowitz L, Linehan D, Colditz G.Diabetes and pancreatic cancer survival: a prospective cohort-based study.Br J Cancer. 2014;111(1):181-185. doi:10.1038/bjc.2014.224
Tas F, Sen F, Odabas H, Kılıc L, Keskın S, Yıldız I.Performance status of patients is the major prognostic factor at all stages of pancreatic cancer.Int J Clin Oncol. 2013 Oct;18(5):839-46. doi:10.1007/s10147-012-0474-9
Yamamoto T, Yagi S, Kinoshita H, et al.Long-term survival after resection of pancreatic cancer: a single-center retrospective analysis.World J Gastroenterol. 2015;21(1):262-268. doi:10.3748/wjg.v21.i1.262
National Cancer Institute.Pancreatic Cancer Treatment (Adult)(PDQ) — Patient Version.
Meet Our Medical Expert Board
Share Feedback
Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?OtherHelpfulReport an ErrorSubmit
Was this page helpful?
Thanks for your feedback!
What is your feedback?OtherHelpfulReport an ErrorSubmit
What is your feedback?
By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.Cookies SettingsAccept All Cookies
By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
Cookies SettingsAccept All Cookies
