Pancreatic cancer will be the second deadliest cancer by 2030

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last updated 8 January 2015

By 2030, pancreatic cancer will be the second most fatal cancer in the U.S., coming in behind lung cancer, according to a new paper published in the journal Cancer Research.

While more people will be diagnosed with prostate, breast, and lung cancers, a higher number of people with pancreatic cancer will die from the disease. As TIME reports, rates of pancreatic cancer are rising due to an aging population and the fact that there is no reliable test to detect pancreatic tumors. That's also why the death rate is so high — cases often aren't diagnosed until the cancer is in advanced stages, when surgery and other treatments no longer work.

Some strides are being made: Researchers are hopeful that a blood test to detect pancreatic tumors may soon exist, and at Stanford University, scientists found a protein, CD47, that pancreatic and other tumors use to protect themselves from being destroyed by the immune system. A drug that attacks the protein was able to shrink pancreatic tumors in mice, and the goal is to study the drug in humans this summer.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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