Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Applauds Cancer Care Report

Organization Supports the Need for Patient-Centric, Evidence-Based Medicine for Success

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. – (March 22, 2017) The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) commends the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) for outlining the key opportunities and challenges facing cancer care providers and patients in its 2017 report on The State of Cancer Care in America.

“We applaud ASCO for their thorough investigation of progress and challenges in cancer care in America,” said Julie Fleshman, JD, MBA, president and CEO of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. “We also note that the report calls out pancreatic cancer and other of the deadliest cancers as those for which the rate of progress has not matched other cancer types. We are working diligently to change those statistics.”

Pancreatic cancer patients are faced with the lowest five-year survival rate of any major cancer, only 9 percent. Though the pancreatic cancer community has seen rapid progress over the past decade, there must be greater urgency to fight the world’s toughest cancer.

As the leading pancreatic cancer organization, PanCAN is working to expedite progress, improve patient outcomes and double survival by 2020 through key initiatives like Precision PromiseSM and Know Your Tumor®. These initiatives align with the seven components that make up ASCO’s “framework for patient-centered, evidence-based, high-quality cancer care.”

No. 1 on ASCO’s list is engaged patients. For patients and their loved ones facing pancreatic cancer, the organization’s PanCAN Patient Services call center provides information, resources and hope to help patients navigate their disease, treatment options and supportive care.

The framework also includes robust research efforts to develop new and more effective therapies – through evidence-based clinical trials. Our PanCAN Patient Services Case Managers can guide callers through a personalized pancreatic cancer clinical trial search or patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals can search our comprehensive database using our online Clinical Trial Finder tool.

Finally, ASCO’s report emphasizes the need for translating evidence into clinical practice – and learning from each and every patient.

PanCAN’s Patient Registry facilitates collection of clinical and outcomes data from patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S. and throughout the world. Pooling data will uncover meaningful trends and help define best practices moving forward. This strategy is in perfect alliance with ASCO’s recommendation that: “all relevant stakeholders should prioritize the collection of patient-reported outcomes.”

“This report reinforces that our comprehensive strategy of privately funding and advocating for greater federal resources for pancreatic cancer research, providing leading-edge patient services and clinical initiatives and raising awareness nationwide is putting us on the right path to improve patient outcomes and double pancreatic cancer survival by 2020,” added Fleshman.