According to a new report the number of Australians dying from pancreatic cancer is increasing. The report, Pancreatic Cancer: One of Australia’s Most Lethal Diseases, says that at the current rate of five people every day, Australians have a greater chance of dying from pancreatic cancer than in a car accident.

The report quotes the latest AIHW statistics which have documented 2244 new cases of pancreas cancer in Australia in 2006, and 2076 people dying of the disease in the same year. Pancreatic cancer is the 12th most common cancer in Australia and the 5th leading cause of cancer deaths. The GI CANCER Institute report shows that the median survival rate for advanced pancreatic cancer is a mere 3-6 months, and some people die within weeks of diagnosis, which is worse than any other cancer.

According to the GI CANCER Institute treatment for pancreatic cancer is currently at a similar point where bowel cancer was 5-10 years ago. “Despite considerable research efforts into pancreatic cancer over the last decade, very little progress has been made in the treatment of this disease,” says Professor Goldstein, a medical oncologist and director of the GI CANCER Institute. “Fewer than 5% of patients survive past five years from diagnosis and the reason for such poor survival is that pancreatic cancer is aggressive and often undetected until it has spread into other organs and tissues. The challenge we are facing is to find better treatments for this cancer,” says Professor Goldstein, “and the scientific techniques to better understand pancreatic cancer may now be coming available with the advent of personalised medicine and genetic understanding of the disease.”