Shining a Light on Pancreatic Cancer Progress and Support

Raising awareness for pancreatic cancer is essential for increasing attention, funding and advocacy toward a disease that continues to have limited treatment options and challenging outcomes, according to Dr. Suneel Kamath.

In recognition of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month this November, Kamath sat down for an interview with CURE, where he discussed the importance of directing greater support toward cancers with the greatest unmet needs. He works in Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio, where he also is an assistant professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University.

Transcript

What is the importance of recognizing Liver Cancer Awareness Month and similar awareness initiatives, and what key message would you most want patients to take from these efforts?

For pancreatic cancer, maybe due to the more aggressive nature of it and the worse outcomes that we see, it often doesn't get as much attention in the media and advocacy and things like that. I think this month is so critical to turn our attention to something that truly needs our focus.

One thing I'm very passionate about is looking at where we tend to target our funding from the federal perspective and from an advocacy perspective. Unfortunately, what we often see is that our federal dollars from the NIH and the NCI, and a lot of where donations go as well, often go to cancers where outcomes are already very good. You know, there are a lot of good narratives out there, a lot of people that can tell their story of success and hope and everything, and so people want to target our funding and support there.

We almost need to flip that whole mindset 180 degrees around. If anything, the diseases that need the most help are where we need to target our funding and our support. I think this month is so important for doing that. It's a way to highlight that there is a great need, that this is still a deadly cancer, but there is hope. There is progress being made. There are a lot of new things on the horizon, coming about.

I do think that by raising awareness about those hopeful directions, we can start to change those tough outcomes that we often see in this disease, because the time, the money, the support, the effort today, will lead to those better outcomes in 10 and 20 years and into the future.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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