Pancreatic cancer is still very much a dangerous and all too often fatal disease. Because there are really very few ways to accurately screen for risk and in the early stages, symptoms are apparent it is exceptionally difficult for medical professionals to treat properly. It is estimated that most of the people who are diagnosed with the disease succumb to its effects within two years. Surgical intervention is sometimes available to those lucky enough to be diagnosed in the very early stages of the illness, but even that carries huge risks and has a relatively poor success rate.

Statistically it has been known for a considerable amount of time that the incidence of pancreatic cancer amongst blacks is higher than that in whites.

In an effort to further the limited knowledge scientists and medical professionals have of the risk factors for and causes of the disease Lauren D. Arnold, Ph.D., M.P.H and colleagues at the Washington University in St Louis set out to examine known and potential risk factors for pancreatic cancer and the difference in the effect of these factors between black and white sufferers. They examined data culled from the Cancer Prevention Study II to see what effect these risk factors could be seen to have in regards to the differences in incidence and mortality amongst ethnic groups.

Arnold and her colleagues concluded that regardless of gender or race the highest risk factor found amongst the study participants for pancreatic cancer was a history of smoking cigarettes. They also concluded that an increasing BMI (Body Mass Index) was another major risk factor amongst all participants. In regards to race it was noted that the black participants had a 42 percent higher incidence of risk of pancreatic cancer related death than their white counterparts.

The Cancer Prevention Study II, from which the data for this new study was taken, is a longitudinal study that involved over one million participants who were enrolled into the research in 1982. Participants provided their medical history and race and gender information and researchers were able to track all the cancer deaths amongst the enrollees and evaluate the various outcomes.

This study differed from others by the fact that it involved the study of previously cancer free participants, following them over a long period of time, which allowed researchers to see the risk patterns for disease for themselves.