In a new study from the University of Birmingham, researchers found almost half of people diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer are not prescribed inexpensive yet essential tablets without which they cannot digest food.
This places them at risk of starvation or being less able to tolerate treatment.
The tablet is known as Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy (PERT). It is a very simple tablet that allows patients with pancreatic cancer to absorb their food and is a vitally important part of their treatment.
As pancreatic cancer grows, it stops the pancreas from producing enzymes needed to digest food and absorb nutrients.
PERT tablets are therefore essential to help patients eat, stay healthy enough to tolerate treatment and to manage debilitating symptoms from cancer—including pain, diarrhea and extreme weight loss.
In the study, the team examined the records of 1,350 patients with pancreatic cancer in the UK.
They found huge variation in prescription rates for PERT across 84 NHS hospitals (59 non-specialist and 25 specialist surgical hospitals).
In the patients who had been diagnosed too late to have surgery (the only cure for the disease), just 45% were prescribed PERT tablets. Meanwhile, of those whose cancer was deemed operable, 74% were prescribed PERT.
Around 9,900 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer per year in the UK, and sadly for 80 percent of them, it is too late to have surgery.
The disease’s vague symptoms, such as back pain and indigestion, mean it often goes undetected until after it has already spread.
Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival of all the 20 common cancers, with less than seven percent of people with the disease surviving beyond five years after diagnosis in the UK, and survival rates have improved very little since the early 1970s.
The cost of PERT for one person per day is approximately £7, although the exact cost will vary depending on the number of tablets taken, the supplier of PERT and the dosage.
PERT is not new and is already recommended for people with pancreatic cancer by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
If you care about pancreatic cancer, please read studies about this treatment could trigger self-destruction of pancreatic cancer and findings of what you need to know about pancreatic cancer.
For more information about pancreatic cancer treatment and prevention, please see recent studies about a new drug combos to treat pancreatic cancer more effectively and results showing that this stuff in your gut may trigger pancreatic cancer.
The study is published in Pancreatology.
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