AS?EERILY AS?IT?MIGHT?APPEAR, this is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month – at least in the United States, and for all of November, purple will be the colour to signal awareness of the debilitating disease.
. . . As if we needed to be made aware. Just less than a week ago we laid to rest our Prime Minister David Thompson, a veritable victim of pancreatic carcinoma, the survival rate of which at best is a mere five years.
The organizers of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month are adamant that we must work together towards changing this statistic, and they believe it starts with increasing “the visibility” of cancer of the pancreas. It couldn’t have been more visible to Barbadians than in the last few months as our Prime Minister wrestled with it valiantly – though succumbing in the end last October 23 after a February/March diagnosis.
Tragically, most victims don’t even know when pancreatic cancer is on to them, because it so often grows without any symptoms at first, thus presenting itself when it is at an advanced stage.
November is as good a time as any to reflect upon the disease, its high mortality rate in such short time – a survival rate of three weeks to seven months after it has been found.
Of course, the question has been asked of pancreas transplant as a viable option. But it seems such transplantation is recommended for people suffering with Type I diabetes, patients whose organ is unable to make enough insulin; not necessarily stricken with cancer.
It is noteworthy that transplantation is becoming the preferred option of doctors when it comes to afflicted organs.
Only yesterday the famous Dr Vilma Scantlebury was making the case – in the SUNDAY?SUN – that for kidney disease the transplant is superior to dialysis treatment.
And as the Barbadian-born American Dr Scantlebury sees it, Barbados cannot facilitate enough dialysis machines to accommodate the rising number of patients of kidney dysfunction anyway.
The myth that people can live forever on dialysis, Dr Scantlebury wishes to dispel.
While dialysis is a lifesaving treatment, it performs only about ten per cent of the work a functioning kidney does, and because of its impact on the body, dialysis can cause other serious health complications, among them heart disease, bone disease, anaemia and high blood pressure.
According to health experts, the average life expectancy for a patient on dialysis is five years (though we have had the legendary El Verno del Congo on it for many many more); and for the patient receiving a kidney transplant it is typically 12 to 20 years.
Now that Dr Scantlebury has raised the issue of the better option, we are certain the matter will not escape our health authorities. As to Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, we are not sure why it seems to have missed the notice of our health and cancer organisations.