Twelve weeks. That’s how long it took for pancreatic cancer—one of the deadliest cancers in the world—to kill my father. It’s not called a  silent killer  for nothing : the disease develops silently, with few early symptoms, until treatment options are limited.

A silent and aggressive Can:cer

Pancreatic cancer receives less media attention than lung, breast, or colon cancer. Yet, it remains one of the most serious cancers, ranking  fourth in the list of cancer deaths .

• In France alone, nearly 16,000 new cases are diagnosed each year ( Public Health France, 2023 ).
• Worldwide, the incidence is increasing by 2 to 3% per year.
• The five-year survival rate is still less than  10%.

Diagnosis is usually late: the average age at screening is 71 for men and 74 for women. By then, more than three-quarters of tumors are already inoperable. Only complete surgical removal offers a chance of long-term survival, hence the importance of early detection.

The two symptoms we missed

In hindsight, there were two clear warning signs that we should have taken more seriously.

1. Persistent abdominal or back pain

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