Monthly Archives: June 2013

Three separate recent studies year suggest a modest but definite relationship between bacteria that are associated with periodontal / oral disease and pancreatic cancer (ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas). The largest and most recently published research primarily by European (and some American) researchers reported out recently in the December, 2013 issue of the medical journal […]

Harvard researchers led by Ying Bao, MD, ScD (Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School) published an article last week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute with an intriguing finding.  In looking at 468 pancreatic cancer patients (ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas) compared with 1080 matched control subjects, they found that the […]

One of the standard tests to try to diagnose carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumors has been the 5-HIAA test – which required a 24-hour sample of urine.  This was often messy, inconvenient, embarrassing, and consequently sometimes inaccurate. The term 5-HIAA stands for 5-Hydroxyindoleacetic acid which is a main metabolite of serotonin – and which is typically […]

It’s thought that about 30-40% of cases of pancreatic cancer (ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas) may be attributable to smoking tobacco.   Now comes more research about additional possible bad effects of smoking. Brand and colleagues from the University of Michigan recently published a study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology that showed that alcohol and tobacco […]

Bonnie Gail Franklin passed on today at age 69 due to pancreatic cancer (ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas).  To those of a certain age (this author included) Ms. Franklin will always be associated with Ann Romano, her role as the divorced mother of two in the sitcom “One Day at a Time” on CBS from […]