Our Approach & Expertise

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• Our Nursing Staff

  At Memorial Sloan-Kettering, we have a dedicated team of nurses who care for patients with pancreatic cancer during outpatient visits and inpatient hospital stays. Each nurse -- who has knowledge and experience treating patients with pancreas cancer -- works in collaboration with one primary physician to oversee every patient's care. This allows our nurses to assess a patient's needs, triage symptoms, and, if necessary, make referrals to other departments within Memorial Sloan-Kettering, such as integrative medicine, nutrition, and social work. Nurses also help patients understand the details of the treatment plan and what to expect throughout the course of treatment. They also are actively involved with teaching both patients and their families, and provide educational materials as needed.

  As the liaison between patients and physicians, nurses play an important role in the team approach to care offered at the Center.

Our Support Services We understand that life is different after a diagnosis of cancer more

Communication with patients and caregivers is an important priority at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. We believe that treating the whole person, not just the disease, is best for patients and family members. Memorial Sloan-Kettering offers a broad range of emotional support programs designed to help patients and family members cope with the range of issues related to life during and after cancer treatment. Our doctors are also developing new approaches for the prevention and treatment of depression in pancreatic cancer patients. We are evaluating a novel counseling method to help patients with late-stage pancreatic cancer and other cancers find meaning and hope in the face of their illness. In addition, we are investigating the role of cytokines -- naturally occurring chemicals involved in inflammation -- in the development of depression in pancreatic cancer patients.

For more information about the services we offer, please visit the After Treatment section of this overview.

Individualized Treatment Plan

Patients in whom pancreatic cancer is suspected will undergo a series of tests to confirm the diagnosis and determine the extent of the disease in a process called staging. Our diagnostic radiologists are experienced in interpreting data from imaging tests such as MRI and CT scans. (These tests may have been done before coming to Memorial Sloan-Kettering.) Patients also may require a biopsy, in which a small tissue sample is removed and examined under a microscope. Our interventional radiologists and gastroenterologists routinely perform pancreatic biopsy using minimally invasive, non-surgical techniques. A pathologist will review the biopsy to confirm the diagnosis and determine whether additional tests are required to develop a highly individualized treatment plan.

Multidisciplinary input is an important aspect of the treatment plan, as many patients will receive more than one type of treatment. For pancreatic cancer, this may include some combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Having surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, and radiologists collaborating on treatment from the very beginning optimizes patient care.

Our Publications Visit PubMed for journal articles from our pancreatic cancer experts go

Memorial Sloan-Kettering's surgeons have extensive experience in pancreatic cancer surgery, and perform more than 250 procedures each year. Studies have shown that hospitals with a higher number of pancreatic cancer surgeries have better outcomes, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering has one of the lowest surgical mortality rates for this disease.

Our surgeons continue to refine their techniques and find new ways to improve outcomes by combining surgery with other treatment modalities. One method, called neoadjuvant therapy, involves pre-treating surgery patients with the chemotherapy drugs gemcitabine and oxaliplatin. Our surgeons are also working to refine and evaluate newer approaches to pancreatic surgery, such as minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, in order to reduce complications and eliminate unnecessarily extensive surgery.

New Approaches to Therapy for Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

The majority of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer are not candidates for surgical removal of the tumor, which in most cases has metastasized, or spread, beyond the pancreas at the time of diagnosis. Memorial Sloan-Kettering offers a number of treatments aimed at reducing pain and improving quality of life for these patients. Many patients with advanced disease can be treated with radiation therapy, with or without chemotherapy drugs such as gemcitabine, a potent radiation therapy sensitizer. New chemotherapy regimens that combine gemcitabine with other chemotherapy drugs such as erlotinib and oxaliplatin, as well as novel drugs that destroy the blood vessels that feed pancreatic tumors, are being studied in patients whose cancer has metastasized or recurred.

Minimally Invasive Techniques for Pain Relief

Some patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer may experience severe abdominal pain. Memorial Sloan-Kettering physicians were among the first to use a technique known as neurolytic celiac plexus block, which involves injecting an anesthetic directly into the nerves that cause abdominal pain. This minimally invasive method has been shown to improve patients' pain level, mood, and life expectancy, and can be performed either during laparoscopic staging of the disease or during evaluation by endoscopic ultrasound -- with fewer side effects than conventional approaches to pain management.  To learn more about this palliative procedure, visit the section of this overview on Symptom Management.

Find a Clinical Trial Find out about new research studies for pancreatic cancer more

Most patients with pancreatic cancer are not diagnosed until their cancer is advanced and much more difficult to treat. Expanding our understanding of the environmental and genetic risk factors for pancreatic cancer could lead to earlier evaluation and treatment, particularly for people with a strong family history of the disease. In 2002, Memorial Sloan-Kettering established a Familial Pancreatic Cancer Registry to help identify environmental and inherited risk factors for the disease, such as mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.