Pancreas / Pancreatic Cancer

The pancreas is a large gland that sits behind your stomach. It is part of the digestive system and has 2 important jobs in the body. Firstly, it produces enzymes (digestive juices) which goes into the small bowel and helps to digest the food that we eat. The second job of the pancreas is to make hormones like insulin which helps keep our blood sugar levels stable. If we have too much sugar in our body (in our blood cells), the pancreas detects this and delivers more insulin into the small bowel so that the sugar level can come down. In people with diabetes, the pancreas can´t make enough insulin to keep the body´s blood sugar level stable. We don´t fully understand the cause of pancreatic cancer but there are various factors that can increase the risk of developing it. It mainly occurs in older people and smoking and other tobacco use seem to be an important risk factor. Other risk factors have to do with certain infections and inflammations in the pancreas and people with diabetes are also thought to have an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. There are different types of pancreatic cancer and please see below if you want to find out more.

To help you find answers to some of your questions, we have linked to Maggie’s CancerLinks where you will be signposted to high quality information about pancreatic cancer. The information on these websites is not written specifically for young people but it is written using simple language in a way that most people will be able to understand. Don’t worry if there are lots of links to different websites. Have a look on the description of the links and very often you will find the information you are searching for on the first website that you look at. If you just want general information about cancer you could read the ‘About cancer’ section on riprap.

Remember that the information on these sites is general. Within each cancer type, there are different variations, different stages, different treatments and people may also respond differently to the same treatments. Each person is an individual and because of this, generic information may not fit the situation you are thinking of. Often your parents or someone else who knows the details can answer your questions best. Also, please feel free to get in touch with us here at riprap. We can help you sorting through information or discuss things you’ve heard or read or anything at all that’s on your mind.

Don’t forget that there are lots of effective treatments for cancer these days and many cancers can be completely cured. There are also very good treatments to control cancers that cannot be cured and research is going on all the time to find new treatments that can control and cure cancers.

Page updated 13 July 2017