Study Looks at Increasing Incidence of Pancreatic Cancer in Younger Adults

TUESDAY, Nov. 19, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- The increasing incidence of pancreatic cancer in young Americans is mainly due to increased detection of smaller, early-stage endocrine cancer, according to a research letter published online Nov. 19 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Vishal R. Patel, M.D., M.P.H., from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and colleagues examined whether the observed increase in pancreatic cancer among young Americans represents a true increase in cancer occurrence by assessing the incidence, tumor size, stage distribution, and disease-specific mortality for pancreatic cancer among men and women aged 15 to 39 years.

The researchers found that the incidence of pancreatic cancer increased 2.1-fold in young women (3.3 to 6.9 per million) and 1.6-fold in young men (3.9 to 6.2 per million) between 2001 and 2019. In women and men, the rate of cancer-directed pancreatic surgery more than doubled (about 1.5 to 4.7 per million and about 1.1 to 2.3 per million, respectively). However, in both sexes, death from pancreatic cancer was stable (about 1.5 and 2.5 deaths per million for women and men, respectively). Early-stage cancer accounted for most of the increase in incidence (0.6 to 3.7 per million women and 0.4 to 2.2 per million men, respectively). The incidence of small tumors (≤2 cm) increased eightfold and threefold in women and men, respectively. The incidence of late-stage cancer did not change significantly in women or men. The increase in incidence was not due to adenocarcinoma; most of the increase was due to endocrine cancer and solid pseudopapillary neoplasms in women.

"The backdrop of stable mortality suggests that the recent increase in early-onset pancreatic cancer reflects detection of previously undetected disease rather than a true increase in cancer occurrence," the authors write.

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