Pancreas, symptoms of diseases

Pancreatic cancer is the kind of disease the number of deaths from which is constantly growing all over the world.

The emergence and progression of pancreatic cancer is promoted by smoking (in non-smokers this type of cancer occurs three times less often than in smokers), overweight and obesity, diabetes (the probability of developing cancer is doubled), recurrent chronic pancreatitis, alcohol abuse, cysts In the pancreas, gland adenoma, heredity.

It is very difficult to detect a pancreatic tumor. The pancreas is very deep in the stomach cavity and is quite large (about 15 cm), so a small tumor is hard to find on it. In addition, this disease is often "masked" for gastric ulcer and gallbladder disease.

Pancreatic cancer is very dangerous precisely because this type of cancer in the early stages is almost not manifested and when the tumor is formed, pancreatic symptoms do not reveal. But there are a number of signs that need to be feared and which should be alerted.

Cancer of the pancreas has common symptoms and those that depend on which part of the gland the new growth is located. In 75% of cases, the tumor is located in the head of the pancreas. Rarely does cancer affect the body and tail of the pancreas.

The general symptoms (manifested in 90% of patients) include loss of appetite, weight loss, nausea, fever, general weakness, dull sharp pain at the top of the abdomen, an intestinal disorder. Often the first "alarm" is jaundice without pain and increased fever.

Manifestation of symptoms of a malignant tumor of the head of the gland can be divided into two periods. At the initial stage of the development of cancer, pancreatic symptoms barely manifest. The first sign is shroud pain, which becomes more intense in the evening and at night. Further common symptoms appear, and also severity begins after eating in the epigastric region. In the second stage, with the progression of the disease, jaundice begins, which rapidly builds up, itchy skin appears, and feces discolor. Causes of the affected pancreatic symptoms are also the following: belching, loss of appetite, diarrhea, vomiting. All these manifestations appear, because the tumor begins to squeeze the bile duct more and more. For the same reason, for people who have pancreatic head cancer, an increase in the size of the gallbladder and liver is characteristic. If the tumor sprouts into the stomach or duodenum, stenosis or bleeding is possible.

Malignant pancreatic tumor located in the body or tail of the gland is much less common. To detect such a cancer can only be at a late stage, since jaundice occurs only in 10% of patients. In 20% of cases, because of the destruction of cells that produce insulin, there is diabetes mellitus. Tumors of the tail and body of the pancreas often sprout into nearby blood vessels (the portal vein, mesenteric and splenic vessels ...). When the tumor is localized in the gland, the main symptom is pain.

Most often, the affected pancreatic symptoms begin to manifest at that stage of the disease, when other organs are already affected by metastases. First of all, the liver, adrenal glands, lungs, bones, pleura are affected.

In time, it is very difficult to diagnose pancreatic cancer correctly because the disease does not always have a typical clinical picture (especially in the body and tail tumors of the gland).

In detecting pancreatic cancer, modern research methods play a decisive role: ultrasound and computed tomography, endoscopic and retrograde pancreatography, angiography.