Celebrities Raise Deadly Cancer's Awareness

When "Dirty Dancing" star Patrick Swayze's pancreatic cancer diagnosis made international news last month, he unofficially became the poster boy for this killer disease that unfortunately for its victims remains under researched. Pancreatic cancer needs poster boys and girls since most advocates don't live long enough to tell their stories.

Swayze's media hyped diagnosis is impacting pancreatic cancer awareness. Reports surfaced that the celebrity was under treatment at the Stanford University Cancer Center in Palo Alto, Calif., and that his prognosis was encouraging. When I read the articles, I wondered what specifically made his caregivers so optimistic since scientific progress has been slow. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and in 2008, over 33,000 Americans will die from the disease.

I recently had a conversation with leading pancreatic cancer surgeons in Philadelphia who are involved in efforts to curtail the disease, not just treating it with surgery and chemotherapy. Pancreatic cancer isn't like most cancers since it's hard to find, due to where the pancreas is positioned in the body. However, in order to increase chances of survival, the disease must be diagnosed in its early stages before it metastasizes. Often most pancreatic cancer patients don't know they have it since typically there are no early warnings. CT, MRI and especially endoscopic ultrasound are imaging modalities utilized to confirm the diagnosis. Centers that specialize in pancreatic cancer are developing a screening test with MRI and endoscopic ultrasound, especially for patients who may have a genetic predisposition for this specific cancer. The screening protocol is in its early stages, and so are a number of other efforts that rely heavily on radiology for their effectiveness. But still there's hope. In the future, patients may go in for a blood test, have their sample analyzed with lab and radiology tests, receive a diagnosis and then take a pill to cure their disease. Unfortunately, that day is a long way off. There is a lack of funding to put these ideas in motion.

 Advocates recently decided to do something about money. On the eve of Swayze's diagnosis, over 220 pancreatic cancer advocates prepared to arrive on Capitol Hill on March 11 to seek an unprecendented $170 million in federal funding to support the "National Plan to Advance Pancreatic Cancer Research," initiated by the El Segundo, Calif.-based Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN).

One of those advocates is celebrity pancreatic cancer patient Randy Pausch, a 47-year-old computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who has terminal pancreatic cancer. His moving testimony to Congress is here: http://www.pancan.org/Press/video/video_pausch_testimony.html. Pausch, who received his diagnosis in September 2006, became famous when a final lecture he gave at Carnegie Mellon hit YouTube and got millions of hits. When that happened, he quickly became an advocate for pancreatic cancer using what time he has left to raise awareness. He's made good use of his days so far appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," named ABC's World News "Person of the Week," and was commissioned by Disney-owned publisher Hyperion to co-author a book called "The Last Lecture."

Perhaps the visibilty of Pauch's plight--who says he always did the right thing and never smoked, ate right and exercised--may help net increased funding from Congress. He'll appear again on ABC Wednesday, April 9th at 10 p.m. EST when the special "Primetime" edition "The Last Lecture: A Love Story for Your Life" airs and once again puts a celebrity face with an under-funded killer disease.

 Update: For those who missed the "Primetime" special, ABC made available a special DVD  for purchase with a portion of the proceeds donated to pancreatic cancer research. The information is here: http://abcnewsstore.go.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/DSIProductDisplay?catalogId=11002&storeId=20051&productId=2017125&langId=-1&categoryId=100014. Supporters can choose from a drop down menu either Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (www.pancan.org) or The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research (www.lustgarten.org) as benefactors from the DVD sales.