She's also had pancreatic cancer, but it's thought it was caught early enough.
The last time I looked at the stats, the odds of surviving pancreatic cancer for five years after diagnosis were 1 in 25. This means if you are "lucky" enough to catch it
very early, you
might survive five years; then again, maybe not. And if you do manage to survive five years, your odds of making it another five years are not very good.
By the way, all of the stats probably should be adjusted for age at the time of diagnosis. The 4% (1 in 25) rate that I recall for five-year-survival was based on all pancreatic cancer victims--i.e., newly diagnosed victims of
all ages. I would bet dollars-to-donuts that an 80-year-old patient's chances of surviving even five years from the time of diagnosis are
way less than 4%.
