MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. -- During the worst of the pandemic, so many people skipped regular screenings. Now, doctors say they're seeing more and more patients with advanced disease, such as pancreatic cancer.
"You never know why you're a survivor," said pancreatic cancer patient Tom Shaffer, a 74-year-old Manhattan Beach resident who's defying the odds."I'm still here eight years later. I'm pretty healthy."His new wife, Laurie, rushed him to the hospital.His tumor was inoperable. After enduring many life-threatening complications, Shaffer connected with the. Meeting other patients motivated him to keep going.
Dr. Joe Hines, the director of the UCLA Agi Hirshberg Center for Pancreatic Diseases, said the foundation has been involved with quite a bit of different discoveries at the university. "It looks for specific genetic abnormalities, and there are certain types of chemotherapies and approaches to treatment that we can tailor," he said."My tumors went down 60% in three months," he said.