On a sad note today, the news is coming out that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was having surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her pancreas. She was at Sloan-Kettering Hospital here in New York for the procedure, known as one of the best institutions in the world to fight cancer. She is certainly in good hands, but the news is anything but.
From NPR:
She is one tough lady, as anyone who has seen her in action can attest to but the prognosis for her case is obviously grim. It is great that doctors caught it early though, so the situation isn't a worst-case scenario. Still, I'll have her in my prayers and I hope everyone else out there does as well (and if not prayers, then simply thoughts).Ginsburg's pancreatic cancer was discovered early, in the course of a routine annual screening, but medical literature says even in this circumstance, a patient's five-year survival chances range from 10 to 30 percent.[...]
The five-year survival rate is 5 percent, with most patients living less than a year. Doctors say this poor survival rate is due in significant part to the fact that cancers of the pancreas are discovered late, when the cancer is very advanced.
Because Ginsburg previously underwent radiation treatment after her colon surgery, she likely will not be able to have radiation treatment a second time. Chemotherapy has not proved to be curative for pancreatic cancer.
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