The Smiths star Andy Rourke has died at the age of 59, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
The condition is one of the hardest cancers to spot and has one of the lowest survival rates of any cancer, so it's essential to catch it early if you can. Pancreatic cancer is known as a silent disease, and symptoms can often be mistaken for other less serious health conditions - reports the Mirror.
With this in mind, we've looked at the most common signs, and if you spot them you should contact your doctor immediately. Yellowing of the skin, known as jaundice, and bleeding in the stomach or intestine are the two most serious symptoms associated with pancreatic cancer.
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Other symptoms include an increased thirst and dark yellow urine, but you should also be on the lookout for problems swallowing, diarrhoea, a change in bowel habits, vomiting or indigestion. An abdominal mass or abdominal pain can also be an indicator, as can weight loss, constipation, fat in stool, nausea, flatulence, heartburn, fever, tiredness, appetite loss, itching and back pain.
A recent study found that thousands of patients die early from pancreatic cancer and 36% of pancreatic cancer deaths could have been avoided if treated sooner. Dr Weiqi Liao, data scientist at the University of Oxford, said: "When pancreatic cancer is diagnosed earlier, patients have a higher chance of survival.
"It is possible to diagnose patients when they visit their GP, but both patients and GPs need to be aware of the symptoms associated with pancreatic cancer."
Dr Pippa Corrie, chair of the pancreatic workstream of the NCRI Upper Gastrointestinal Group and Consultant Medical Oncologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, UK, said: "Being aware of the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer is crucial if we are to diagnose patients earlier and improve pancreatic cancer survival.
"This research could help GPs and their patients know more about the signs of pancreatic cancer. It's vital that people speak to their GP if they notice these symptoms."
Pancreatic Cancer UK, a dedicated charity that offers specialist support and investment in research, is helping to fund a project where a new detection test is used - and all you'd have to do is blow into a bag at your GP surgery.
The charity said the test would be a world-first for the disease and is backing a research team at Imperial College London - led by Professor George Hanna - which is studying how breath samples taken in a doctor's surgery could detect early symptoms of the cancer.
Helen Whately MP, minister for social care, recently visited the laboratories in London to try the test for herself.
She said: "The earlier we catch cancer, the more likely we are to beat it. That's why breath tests like these could be such an important breakthrough – helping thousands of people get a potentially life-saving early diagnosis. Take pancreatic cancer ... a really nasty disease with a lower survival rate than other cancers. It's tough to detect as the symptoms are often similar to other conditions, and that means less than one in four cases are currently caught at an early stage.
"This technology could change that. With nearly 10,000 people affected in the UK it's easy to see how big a lifeline this might be. These tests, and similar ones looking to detect oesophageal and colorectal cancer, are just one example of the huge efforts being made by scientists, charities and the government to combat cancer."
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