I came here to mention the same thing. He used his fame, as has KISS drummer Peter Criss, to advance knowledge of a disease that most men do not know exists until they are diagnosed with it.
Some types of pancreatic cancer are treatable (like the one Steve Jobs had, until the alternative therapies he used, ahem, didn’t) and others are not.
His name was actually Francis Vincent Zappa.
In the early 1990s, I visited Chicago and walked by a podiatrist’s office, that of Dr. Frank Zappa, DPM. That name was, however, his “real” one, I found out later.
Apparently not. Zappa himself thought his first name was Francis, which was his father’s first name. But he found a copy of his birth certificate when he was an adult and discovered his birthname was Frank Vincent Zappa. cite
Let’s also celebrate the time that Fox Mulder may or may not have emerged from unconsciousness, after narrowly surviving a vampire attack, singing the legendary theme song. (It was during Scully’s version of events in “Bad Blood,” so he might have done it, but Scully might have just been winding him up.)
I’m sure it happens, but not often. I couldn’t believe it when I heard Richard Hatch from Battlestar had died from it. Like many, he was completely fine until…it was way too late.
At least Roundtree went past 80. Richard Hatch was 71.
Pancreatic cancer isn’t any more deadly than any other type of cancer if you consider stage matching. Catch it early, its treatable. Problem is that unlike many cancers, it almost never causes symptoms until it’s spread and by then treatment is hard. If you leave any cancer for years and years without treating it a cure is going to be difficult.
So, if they catch it early its can be treated. But without symptoms how do you catch it? Usually in these cases it’s found incidentally when looking for something else. I know someone who had to have his gallbladder taken out and when they were in there they found he had a pancreatic tumor. Since it was early, the tumor was localized and they just removed the tumor and half his pancreas while they had him open. Complete cure.
But usually pancreatic cancer is silent until its too late. When my mother was diagnosed, it was already stage 4 with liver involvement. She didn’t know she was sick until she woke up jaundiced one morning.
(in retrospect she’d been having symptoms for a long time but they weren’t recognized. Chronic back pain which was masked by a fall- Dr. thought she was just taking a long time to heal. She also lost quite a bit of weight in the 6 months leading up to the diagnosis, but she was overweight to begin with and had been on a new diet, and just thought it was working).
She lasted 2 years post diagnosis, which was extremely good for how bad the cancer was, and her quality of life during treatment was also very good up until the last 3 weeks when it all came crashing down.
I had this poster up on the wall for the longest time.
I got a colonoscopy at 45 two months ago.
Shouldn’t we all be getting some kind of pancreatic cancer screening?
The only way to screen for pancreatic cancer is either using an endoscopic ultrasound (invasive) or CT scan (radiation exposure). The cost-benefit analysis at the population level isn’t favorable for routine screening - i.e. there are risks associated with the screening methods themselves. If you have risk factors (genetics, family history etc) it might change the calculus for an individual. But then you’re also dealing with the insurance companies that might not want to pay.
I had myself tested for genetic predisposition (paid out of pocket) for pancreatic cancer due to my family history (mother and maternal grandfather). I don’t have any loci associated with increased risk. But that’s not an absolute…
At the usual time of diagnosis, I believe pancreatic cancer is among the very worst, with usual five year survival rates of about 1%. At least this was what we learned a few decades ago.
Yep. “Time of Diagnosis”. It’s usually diagnosed too damn late.
It’s also difficult to diagnose, and any kind of screening isn’t practical unless you have a known genetic risk (and Jimmy Carter’s family was; he appears to have dodged that huge bullet).