If you’ve got indigestion and stomach ache, and maybe you’re off your food and feeling a bit sick, you might think you’ve just got a tummy bug. And while that’s by far the most likely cause, always be aware that they’re the symptoms of something far worse too – the UK’s fifth biggest cancer killer, pancreatic cancer.
Symptoms of the disease, which is diagnosed in around 10,500 people in the UK every year, can often be mistaken for other, far more benign, conditions, and that’s why many people don’t seek medical help until the cancer is in its later stages and far more difficult to treat.
As a result, pancreatic cancer is the deadliest common cancer – more than half of people with the disease die within three months of diagnosis, says Pancreatic Cancer UK (PCUK, pancreaticcancer.org.uk).
