Patrick Swayze has had an "excellent" response to treatment for pancreatic cancer, the actor and his doctor said Tuesday.
"We're thrilled and grateful for the positive response Patrick has shown toward his treatment," the "Dirty Dancing" star and wife Lisa Niemi told People magazine.
"Also, we can't help but feel that all the prayers, meditations and good thoughts sent his way by everyone has made a difference. Thank you!" said the couple.
Dr. George Fisher, Swayze's doctor, told People: "Patrick Swayze continues to respond well to his treatment for pancreatic cancer. Because of his excellent response, he will continue the same therapy at Stanford."
Swayze, 55, announced last month he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He has been undergoing chemotherapy but not radiation treatment, his rep told People.
Caught in its advanced stages, pancreatic cancer, which strikes about 30,000 people a year, has a less than 5 percent survival rate for five years. If caught early and treated aggressively with surgery and chemotherapy — and if the cancer has not spread to lymph nodes — the five-year survival rate can go as high as 17 to 25 percent, said Avram Cooperman, surgical director for the Pancreas and Biliary Center at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.
On The View today Whoopi talked about her friend Patrick Swayze's pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
Interesting, she says she got the job in "Ghost" because he told the director that he wouldn't take the part unless they hired Whoopi, whom he did not know personally at the time.
Fortune magazine has uncovered the trouble with Steve Jobs.
Little is known about Steve's battle with pancreatic cancer till now, in light of the recent news of Patrick Swayze's diagnosis with this horrible disease I found this article to be a story of hope and recovery.
During a routine abdominal scan, doctors had discovered a tumor growing in his pancreas. While a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is often tantamount to a swiftly executed death sentence, a biopsy revealed that Jobs had a rare - and treatable - form of the disease. If the tumor were surgically removed, Jobs' prognosis would be promising: The vast majority of those who underwent the operation survived at least ten years.
Yet to the horror of the tiny circle of intimates in whom he'd confided, Jobs was considering not having the surgery at all. A Buddhist and vegetarian, the Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) CEO was skeptical of mainstream medicine. Jobs decided to employ alternative methods to treat his pancreatic cancer, hoping to avoid the operation through a special diet - a course of action that hasn't been disclosed until now.
For nine months Jobs pursued this approach, as Apple's board of directors and executive team secretly agonized over the situation - and whether the company needed to disclose anything about its CEO's health to investors. Jobs, after all, was widely viewed as Apple's irreplaceable leader, personally responsible for everything from the creation of the iPod to the selection of the chef in the company cafeteria. News of his illness, especially with an uncertain outcome, would surely send the company's stock reeling. The board decided to say nothing, after seeking advice on its obligations from two outside lawyers, who agreed it could remain silent.
In the end, Jobs had the surgery, on Saturday, July 31, 2004, at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, near his home. The revelation of his brush with death remained - like everything involving Jobs and Apple - a tightly controlled affair. In fact, nary a word got out until Jobs' tumor had been removed. The next day, in an upbeat e-mail to employees later released to the press, he announced that he had faced a life-threatening illness and was "cured." Jobs assured everyone that he'd be back on the job in September. When trading resumed a day after the announcement, Apple shares fell just 2.4%.
[Source: Fortune]