Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pancreatic Cancer Is So Lethal Because Patients Rarely Have Symptoms In Early Stages Of Disease
CNBC: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Undergoes Cancer Treatment For Pancreatic Tumor
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has completed a three-week course of radiation therapy for cancer, the high court said in a statement Friday. The treatment, for a tumor on her pancreas, began Aug. 5 and was administered on an outpatient basis. No further treatment is needed, according to the court, and Ginsburg “tolerated the treatment well.” (Higgins and Pramuk, 8/23)
CNN: Why Pancreatic Cancer Is So Deadly
While the court said Ginsburg's tumor "was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body," and no further treatment was needed, pancreatic cancer remains a serious diagnosis for the 86-year-old liberal icon. Pancreatic cancer was the third-leading cause of death from cancer in the United States in 2018, after lung and colorectal cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute. This year, an estimated 56,770 new cases of pancreatic cancer will be diagnosed and an estimated 45,750 deaths from pancreatic cancer will occur across the nation, according to the American Cancer Society. (Landau, 8/24)
