How will my doctor diagnose cancer?
Specific symptoms suggesting pancreatic cancer should alert the physician towards its possibility and they will order a battery of laboratory investigations and -more importantly- imaging studies.
Laboratory investigations aim at identifying the cause of jaundice as well as assessing anemia if present, while imaging studies detect the mass and its extent.
Laboratory investigations include:
- Complete blood count: A complete blood count is routine in most medical conditions, but in pancreatic cancer, it helps detect anemia when the level of hemoglobin falls.
- Bilirubin: Bilirubin is the cause of jaundice and includes two subtypes, direct and indirect. When direct hemoglobin increases at the expense of the indirect, it shows that an obstruction is present, while if the indirect is higher, it shows that the cause is either in the blood or the liver.
- Tumor markers: Tumor markers are chemical substances mostly secreted by cancer. They are usually present normally in the body but at very low levels, and an increase in their level is indicative of cancer. They are also used to detect whether cancer has been effectively eliminated after surgery. In the case of pancreatic cancer, its tumor marker is called CA19-9.