Contact
Cancer Today: Survivor Profile, An Inspiration to Others
WHEN KAY KAYS RECEIVED A PANCREATIC CANCER DIAGNOSIS in 1994 at the age of 44, she had few treatment options and little information. Surgery was the standard of care for operable pancreatic cancer. Chemotherapy use was limited and did little to improve survival. Written materials and early cancer websites contained only brief mentions of the disease. Most strikingly, Kays noted a lack of survivors.
In 1994, very few people with pancreatic cancer lived five years or more after diagnosis. Five-year relative survival was 3.7%. (Today, the percentage has improved to about 12%.) Most people died from the disease in a matter of months. Nearly all cases of pancreatic cancer were diagnosed after it had spread beyond the pancreas, when it was too late for effective treatment. The outcomes were so bleak that “it was a disease you just didn’t talk about,” says Julie Fleshman, president and CEO of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN), founded in 1999.
Luckily, Kays’ doctors discovered her pancreatic cancer early, after she went to the emergency room for back pain that she thought was from gallstones. A surgeon successfully removed her tumor and part of her pancreas, but even so, her medical team told her the cancer would almost certainly return in a matter of months. Kays, who had a 17-year-old son, believed her days were numbered.