Call for greater awareness of pancreatic cancer

The charity, Pancreatic Cancer Action, is calling for greater awareness of the symptoms of the devastating disease.

The charity has made the call as its founder Ali Stunt, has reached her 10-year survival milestone, making her among the one per cent of pancreatic cancer patients in the UK who do so.

The specific type of cancer has the worst survival rate of all 22 common cancers.

The one-year survival rate is nearly 17% for women and just over 20% for men, while the five-year survival rate stands at five per cent for men and just over two per cent for women.

Forty-seven-year-old public transport worker George Weir's life changed forever two years ago when he became one of 273 people in Northern Ireland diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

He had been feeling unwell and went to see his doctor.

He explained: “Then I had indigestion, which I’ve never had before, following on from that I noticed that my urine was very dark. The thing that sent me to the doctor was my bowel motions turned white and I knew there was something badly wrong.”

Mr Weir had surgery to remove the cancer and has now undergone eight rounds of chemotherapy. He says he’s extremely grateful he is now feeling better and can spend quality time with his wife and sons.

The medical profession says more funding is needed to help battle the disease.

Dr Ellie Cannon commented: “Lack of funding is a huge issue for pancreatic cancer, it only gets three per cent that goes into cancer research generally.

“It’s not a cancer that the public are particularly aware of or fundraise for so it very much lags behind the other cancers which is evidenced by the fact that survival rates just haven’t changed in 40 or 50 years.”

  • WATCH: Dr Ellie Cannon discusses some of the warning signs of pancreatic cancer.