Patrick Swayze Dying?
 

Apparently so... of pancreatic cancer. The rumor is he has roughly 5 weeks as it has already begun to spread despite radical chemo therapy.

http://icydk.com/2008/03/05/confirme...rminal-cancer/

Oh no! Not Johnny Castle!!! :(

Oh, that really breaks my heart. I fell in love with him in "The Outsiders". Loved him even more in "Red Dawn".

WOLVERINES!!!!!!

I met him. No, seriously, my Mom did real estate in Southern California in the 80s and sold his mom the ranch she bought back then and he came with her to sign some stuff and I happened to be with my mom that day. Granted, I was about 5 years old at the time, but damn it, I met him!!! My mom tells me, he picked me up and put me on the door of the bed of his truck and I commented on how it stank (he had horse stuff in the bed of it). And he was my first celebrity crush later when I saw him in one of my all time favorite movies, Dirty Dancing. So so sad :(

Wow. Pancreatic cancer is BAD. Everyone I knew who has had it went very quickly and doctors never gave them a rosey outlook.
It is so sad.

My grandmother and uncle have both died from pancreatic cancer. They both died within months of their dignosis (sp). I will be praying for Patrick and his family during this difficult time.

You ain't kidding. My mother in law is battling this right now

So sad about Patrick Swayze. I still remember the SNL with Chris Farley

Soo true. My great aunt was diagnosed with it, and 3 months later she passed.

My prayers go out to him

Oooh Outsiders! L-O-V-E-D that movie! It is unbelievable how many future (now past?!?) stars are in it!

I am so glad that you went there instead of Dirty Dancing!

Very sad news about him though. This is a terrible disease that virtually always wins.

No! This is so sad. It's such a horrible disease. :(

SthrnZeta, I met him too. My sister and I went dancing with him when I was 16. He was real sweet.


ETA: There are conflicting reports about the severity. A statement from his doctor:

"Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment. All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue," Fisher said in the statement. "We are considerably more optimistic."

I'm going to be optimistic too.

This really sucks.:( I love him in To Wong Foo.

According to the MSN report, the cancer is contained and he is recovering well.

I had forgotten about that skit. He was so funny!

No one is giong to mention him in Ghost. "Ditto!"

I didn't want to beleive it at first, because I heard the National Enquirer broke the story. I guess his reps have confirmed it now. So sad! Michael Landon died from pancreatic cancer, didn't he? :(

The WIERDEST thing just happened...

Just as I was reading this thread, and wondering if it were indeed true, the news guy on FoxNews started reporting on Patrick Swayze and his fight with pancreatic cancer.

WIERD!

So sad.

I found a copy of the clip. http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=1422 in case anyone hasn't seen it by this point. It makes me laugh every time. I hope that he recovers and is still with us for awhile.

The advisor for my chapter died from pancreatic cancer last November.

The current President of the AMA just announced that he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He works in my health system and our statisticians work with him closely on his research. He's spent his career focusing on preventative medicine/research. Pancreatic cancer just isn't good, period.

(Oddly, one of the leading neurology researchers in our system died of brain cancer too)

I will be optimistic as well. While is a nasty disease....after being diagnosis in July 2007, my sister was declared pancreatic cancer free on 15 February 2008!! It was a tough course.

The one difference I see, is they say he is only getting chemo and not having any surgery. :( My sister had chemo, radiation AND the surgery (which is really a b!tch procedure to endure).

That is what the biographies say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Landon

I wonder why Patrick had his surgery at Stanford. I thought M.D. Anderson in Houston was the premier place for Pancreatic cancer. (that's what I hear from my Texas pals).

My sister had her surgery at Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis. Since she is 100% cancer free at this time, I think they did a pretty good job.

Her doctor followed the protocol developed by MD Anderson, and a consulting surgeon received training there. :)

PC is really terrible. One of my best friends from college, her father had it and died 7 weeks after being diagnosed.

But...Steve Jobs (from Apple) also had a rare, but very treatable form of it a few years ago. He had a very agressive treatment and is doing well. In fact, he didn't even release the info to the public until he had been treated.

Jobs was treated at Stanford Medical Center, which is where Swayze is. So, maybe that's a good sign?

:::Keeping my fingers crossed that he beats this!:::

My Grandmother (Oma to us) died of Pancreatic Cancer, and if I remember correctly, one of the reasons that the survival rate is (or was then) so low is because it is hard to diagnose it. By the time they figure out it is cancer, it is too late. My Oma was first told she was a type 2 diabetic something like 2 years before she was diagnosed with cancer. They finally figured out it was PC when they couldn't get her diabetes under control. By the time they discovered the cancer, they opened her up, saw that it had spread everywhere, closed her back up, and then called the family.

I hope Patrick Swayze and all those with PC have a much better outcome.

Wow. I didn't realize that he's 55 already! That's crazy. Youngblood was just on the other week...and I think I'm one of the few people that enojyed Road House :) I'm keeping my fingers crossed as well!

I just saw the National Enquirer with him on the cover headed to his chemotherapy. His face is sooo thin and he's puffing on a cigarette. He looks bad. :(

Okay, as someone who has a first degree relative who is an oncologist, here are my thoughts/concerns.

First, the posting about Steve Jobs is correct. He did have a rare type, that was (by all accounts) successfully treated. However, his treatment was surgery... which is the unfortunate key difference here.

Since all cancers are different, I am only going to make a comment about pancreas cancer- please do NOT read the following statement into ANY other type of cancer: The fact that he is having to go to chemo is a concerning sign.

Those small percentages that have the better outcomes in pancreas cancer are ones that for whatever reason had their disease caught early enough to have it cut out. In other words- it did not spread, was very confined, and could be removed surgically.

A very sad fact about pancreas cancer is that survival is not measured in years, or months. It is measure in weeks. Yes, weeks.

It is possible that the first reports that indicated "5 weeks to live" may have been an assumption, or an average of all diagnoses of pancreas cancers. It may also be possible that when his doctor says that "we are more optimistic" than the reports that he was simply referring to more than 5 weeks. Hard to say.

I do wish Mr. Swayze the best and hope that he proves all accounts wrong. I do not come on here to presume to know his exact condition or prognosis. I only want to share some facts that may clarify the different situations that led to more positive outcomes.

The optimal treatment for Pancreatic Cancer is 5 weeks of Radiation simultaneously with 5 weeks of chemo using Gemzar. After sufficient time for tissue to recover from the radiation, a whipple surgerical procedure is done (think hard core gastric bypass and intestinal re-routing). My sister has lived through it. So far she is cancer free and her prognosis is excellent. The drs were emphatic her type of pancreatic cancer has a genetic element to it, and she insisted all our siblings have the genetic marker measurement.

No surgery does not bode well for Swayze.

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong--but didn't Jimmy Carter's mother, father, and all 3 siblings die of pancreatic cancer?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/health/07jimm.html

Apparently so. He has ct scans and mri-s semi-annually.

I would be terrified.

He will always be Miss Vida Boheme, Drag Queen of the Year.

I really hope he beats this.

I honestly didn't know that this disease was so widespread or effected so many! It has been very eye-opening to read all of your posts!

I do wish Mr. Swayze the best of health!

He was so cute in Dirty Dancing!

He will always be Orry Main (North & South) in his West Point uniform to me. (swoon).

Since they said he had an undisclosed surgery a month ago, maybe he had the Whipple then?

When a person has a whipple they can expect to lose as much as 1/4 their body weight right away. After a while, they will regain some, but should expect to maintain at least a 15% body weight loss from their original weight for the rest of their life.

As he was seen looking "tired and thin" I would expect that is what he had. It is a BRUTAL surgery with a 50% complication rate. The greatest/most frequent complication is gastroparesis (basically your digestive system is paralyzed and you can not eat) and treatment of that requires a feeding tube. The gastroparesis can last as long as 6 months but typically last about 12 weeks. My sisters lasted about 8 weeks and it was really really hard on her body. She lost about 50 pounds over all.

Dear Lord! That sounds awful.

Sage, I'm so glad your sister made it through that and is now cancer-free. I'm wishing for the same results here.

I'd be VERY careful about what you declare as "optimal" treatment. You're not his physician, you don't have access to his medical records.

Here's the thing folks: Pancreatic Cancer is VERY, VERY bad. Absolutely this is due to the fact that it rarely is caught early. Sometimes the only presenting symptoms are decreased appetite, vague abdominal pain and depression - certainly not things that scream cancer. The mortality associated with pancreatic cancer is not due to it being a particularly aggressive cancer, quite the opposite, if it progressed faster it might give more symptoms and be caught sooner. It's really a very silent killer.

No I don't have access to his records, and I am NOT his doctor. We were discussing the nature of Pancreatic Cancer and the generalized *average* prognosis for those with the disease.

I only know the mountains of information that I have read over the last 8 months following my sister's diagnosis with PC. The optimal treatment *is* as developed at MD Anderson in Houston TX for all pancreatic types that are treatable with or without surgery -- radiation concurrent with gemzar chemotherapy. Whipple procedure ONLY as indicated based on tumor size, location and arterial involvment.

Pancreatic Cancer generally affects individuals who are 55 or older (my sister was 45), and they typically have had the disease at least 1.5 to 2 years before it is discovered. A standardized blood test has been developed. It is the Ca-19-9 marker (anything above a 35 is considered "postive"). Just like with ovarian cancer (Ca-125 marker), regular blood tests for individuals who have a familial relation who has had pancreatic cancer are in order. I had my level done immediately upon her drs recommendation.

My sister's tumor was found *incredibly* early (< then 5 months based on a body scan she had had in Feb 07), she was very young to have PC and she was in excellent health otherwise. The pathology showed her tumor to be a T1-N0-M0 as good as you could possible pray for with PC. She is by no means completely out of the woods, as she must have quarterly blood tests and CT scans for the next two years and forever with semi-annual blood tests and CT scans.

Very true. Although there are standard courses of treatment, every patient is treated individually. Especially with the growing list of biotech/targeted therapies used to fight cancer, there is no "optimal" treatment for everyone.

ETA: keep in mind that many patients opt for certain treatments based on quality of life considerations.

I loved "Red Dawn"! He was the best in that and "Dirty Dancing". I wanna get the 20th anniversary DVD of "Dirty Dancing". It's really sad that this had to happen to him.

This is my point exactly - while there are 'standards of care' and treatment protocols that are frequently used, to say that anything is the "optimal" treatment is simply incorrect medically. Even further, I'd say that it would be unethical for a medical professional to label almost any treatment for any disease "optimal", especially one with as many side effects as combined chemo, radiation, and surgery. The fact that this triple therapy is even a standard treatment protocol belies the horrible outcomes associated with pancreatic cancer.

Has anybody seen this, it's called "The Last Lecture" by a Carnegie Mellon professor, Randy Pausch, who is battling (dying of) pancreatic cancer. It's about 10 minutes long, but it's so worth it and if you don't get choked up at the end, your heart's made of ice...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgyuYHXqlO4

And he posts regular medical updates on his website: http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html