Benign Pancreatic Tumors

The presence of benign pancreatic tumors may or may not be a cause for worry for some people since they are non-cancerous. Nevertheless, these tumors still need to be removed to help restore the proper function of your pancreas. Removal of these benign pancreatic tumors is done with surgery, sometimes with the procedure called the Whipple operation. This procedure is also used with malignant or cancerous tumors and is used to help preserve the tissues of your pancreas.

What Are Pancreatic Tumors?

Pancreatic tumors are what cause pancreatic cancer. Benign tumors do not cause cancer but malignant ones do and finding out if your tumor is malignant is important to help you get the treatment you need. Pancreatic tumors appear usually in people that have some of these pre-disposed factors as part of their make up. People who are in their sixties, who eat large amounts of red meat, who smoke a lot, who are obese and a whole lot of other factors stand a higher risk of getting pancreatic tumors and pancreatic cancer. People who have malignant pancreatic tumors and are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer often suffer from jaundice, which is the yellowing of a person's skin, and experience pain as well as show a marked decrease in weight. Some pancreatic cancer sufferers may experience incontinence at one time or another, which is why some patients require a bed padded with liners or use adult diapers to help stem this problem. People who have such an ailment require therapy and medication to help ease the pain of the illness as well as to help with treating the problem.

More Information on Pancreatic Cancer and Tumors

One of the ways that have been used lately to detect pancreatic cancer in patients is the use of tissue spectroscopy. The location of cancer stem cells in the skin associated with pancreatic cancer still needs to be studied further though and is done with the use of mice. Researchers plant cancerous cells in mice and try to determine if these can be detected with a spectroscope. Other cell lines that may be tested this way include a549, cell lines for lung cancer, HeLa cell lines and a variety of pancreatic cell lines. The direct transfer of these cancerous cells into mice for testing purposes has been ongoing to help find cures for these different types of cancer. The use of xenografts and passaging of these cancerous cells in mice can further help find a cure for this ailment and for other cancers as well.

Detecting Pancreatic Tumors and Treating Them

Procedures used for detecting pancreatic tumors include imaging studies like the abdominal CT or ultrasounds. Whether a person has benign pancreatic tumors or malignant ones, finding them is essential to treating them and to curing a person who has these pancreatic problems. Treatments for pancreatic tumors that are malignant often requires the usual treatments that are used on people with cancer and this involves chemotherapy and radiation treatments. These are sometimes administered after surgery to get rid of the remaining cancerous cells that may still be in the patient's body after the removal of the tumor.