Social and economic factors tied to pancreatic cancer surgery, survival

Social and economic factors may influence who is most likely to get surgery for early-stage pancreas cancer, a new U.S. study suggests, and eliminating these gaps could improve outcomes, the authors say. Factors such as race, marital status, insurance coverage and region were linked to the odds someone with pancreas cancer would get surgery to remove the tumor, as well as how advanced their tumor was when diagnosed. People who got surgery tended to live much longer than those who didn't. Cancer of the pancreas, a gland that produces hormones, has notoriously poor outcomes, with only 7 percent of patients surviving five years after diagnosis, Gold and colleagues write in JAMA Surgery.