Introduction to Digestive Cancers

Introduction

In 2015 the Board of EuropaColon decided to extend our remit to support patients with digestive cancers. This decision reflects the increased numbers of people with these cancers and the hope that is offered in the development of new techniques for diagnosis and treatment.
 
Our offering will be incremental starting with information on pancreatic cancer. We plan to follow this with information on stomach cancer later in 2015. Our decision recognises the increased numbers of people being diagnosed with these cancers and the projections for the future.

There are three ways that cancer spreads in the body.
 
Tissue: The cancer spreads from where it began by growing into nearby areas.
Lymph system: The cancer spreads from where it began by entering the lymph system and travels via the lymph vessels to other parts of the body.
Blood: The cancer spreads from where it began by entering the blood and travels through the blood vessels to other parts of the body.

When cancer spreads to another part of the body, it is called metastasis. Cancer cells break away from where they began (the primary tumor) and travel through the lymph system or blood and start new tumours.
 
The metastatic tumor is the same type of cancer as the primary tumor. For example, if pancreatic cancer spreads to the liver, the cancer cells in the liver are actually pancreatic cancer cells. The disease is metastatic pancreatic cancer, not liver cancer.

Click here for more information on Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is the twelfth most common cancer in the world (joint position with kidney cancer), with 338,000 new cases diagnosed in 2012.

http://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-specific-cancers/pancreatic-cancer-statistics
http://www.cancer.gov/types/pancreatic/patient/pancreatic-treatment-pdq
 

Click here for more information on Stomach Cancer.
 
Stomach cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the world, with 952,000 new cases diagnosed in 2012.

http://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-specific-cancers/stomach-cancer-statistics
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