On Wednesday, “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek revealed that he’s been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
In the video message announcing his diagnosis, the game-show vet is optimistic: “Normally, the prognosis for this is not very encouraging,” says the 78-year-old. “But I’m going to fight this and I’m going to keep working and with the love and support from my family and friends and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease.”
It’s an inspiring speech — but sadly, the odds aren’t in Trebek’s favor.
“Unfortunately, the prognosis is poor for patients with stage 4 pancreas cancer,” Daniel M. Labow, M.D., chief of Mount Sinai Hospital’s surgical oncology division, tells The Post. “In general, five-year survival rates are between 5 and 10 percent.”
The median pancreatic cancer survival rate for stage-4 patients like Trebek is about a year, he says. Exactly how long depends on how they react to chemotherapy treatment, which targets cancerous cells in the body to “shrink the disease and keep it from spreading” further.
Even if you respond well to chemo, stage 4 cancers aren’t technically “curable” — just treatable, Labow says. The stages of cancer range from 0 (no cancer, only abnormal cells) to 4, with 4 being the most serious: It means that the disease has advanced to other parts of the body. With earlier stages, patients can be cured and tend to live longer.
That doesn’t mean stage 4 pancreatic cancer can’t be medically managed, and that people can’t live with the disease, Labow says. For lucky patients, “there can be long-term survival.” But unfortunately, most patients with a cancer this advanced “succumb to the disease.”
