IOWA CITY, IOWA -- For Friday’s Facebook Story of the Day, KTVO’s fans wanted to know more about pancreatic cancer.
This form of cancer is one of the deadliest. It most recently claimed the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Friday afternoon KTVO spoke with Assistant Professor of Surgery and a doctor at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City, Dr. James Mezhir.
Mezhir told KTVO that researchers throughout the country are working hard at fighting the deadly disease.
“There are many centers throughout the country, including ours here at the University of Iowa, working hard to find new treatments. What we are doing is studying the molecular biology of the disease and coming up with new models to better study the disease,” said Mezhir.
The only way that the cancer can be removed is through surgery, followed by chemotherapy.
“The people in the mid-west are remarkably strong, and when they are diagnosed with a disease like pancreatic cancer, they just want to be well. And they work hard to get better. So, we are trying to find new ways to treat it, and hopefully we are going to continue making progress,” said Mezhir.
Mezhir agrees that researchers have come a long way when it comes to finding out exactly how this type of cancer effects the body, but he also acknowledges that they have a long way to go.