Ask an Expert Series on Facebook
October 2012
From Laura: Pancreatic Cancer genetic? My mother died from it and her cousin. My mother was diagnosed and two months later died. Her cousin diagnosed and three weeks later gone! Terrible disease.
From The Lustgarten Foundation:
Dear Laura,
It is indeed a terrible disease and, yes, pancreatic cancer, like all cancers is a genetic disease meaning that it is caused by a series of changes or mutations in the DNA. Most of the time, these mutations happen by chance in a cell of the pancreas but in 5-10% of cases, the genetic alterations are passed from generation to generation which leads to families with a higher than average incidence of pancreas cancer.