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Patrick Swayze’s widow is making a plea for more research into the disease that killed the actor
 Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze's widow, Lisa Niemi Swayze, is making a plea for more research into pancreatic cancer, a Los Angeles Times report said. The popular actor died nearly 1 1/2 years ago from the disease. He had been diagnosed with the cancer almost two years before his death. Apple founder Steve Jobs is also reported to have been treated for pancreatic cancer.
The United States National Center for Biotechnology Information said the average survival time for people with the disease is usually less than a year. This could be partly because pancreatic cancer does not manifest symptoms at first and is generally caught at a later stage. Although pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer deaths in the US, the SingHealth website says that it is not common in Singapore.
It is not listed in the top 10 cancers affecting Singapore men and women on the National Cancer Centre Singapore website. However, a Singapore study last February suggested that consuming sugary soft drinks could drastically increase the risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Researchers who followed more than 60,000 participants for 14 years in the Singapore Chinese Health Study found that those who drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87 per cent higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer. The study was published last February in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
The incidence of pancreatic cancer increases with age and the majority of patients are between 50 and 80 years of age. The only known risk factor is smoking. Dietary factors such as alcohol and fat have been implicated but not proven as yet to cause pancreatic cancer.
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