Uncommonly, it spreads to the bones or brain.Cancers in the pancreas may also be secondary cancers that have spread from other parts of the body. This is uncommon, found in only about 2% of cases of pancreatic cancer. Kidney cancer is by far the most common cancer to spread to the pancreas, followed by colorectal cancer, and then cancers of the skin, breast, and lung. Surgery may be performed on the pancreas in such cases, whether in hope of a cure or to alleviate symptoms. Risk factors
Risk factors for pancreatic adenocarcinoma include:
Age, sex, and ethnicity – the risk of developing pancreatic cancer increases with age. Most cases occur after age 65, while cases before age 40 are uncommon. The disease is slightly more common in men than in women. In the United States, it is over 1.5 times more common in African Americans, though incidence in Africa is low. Cigarette smoking is the best-established avoidable risk factor for pancreatic cancer, approximately doubling risk among long-term smokers, the risk increasing with the number of cigarettes smoked and the years of smoking. The risk declines slowly after smoking cessation, taking some 20 years to return to almost that of nonsmokers. Obesity – a body mass index greater than 35 increases relative risk by about half. Family history – 5–10% of pancreatic cancer cases have an inherited component, where people have a family history of pancreatic cancer.
Some case reports were published in the 1820s and 1830s, and a genuine histopathologic diagnosis was eventually recorded by the American clinician Jacob Mendes Da Costa, who also doubted the reliability of Morgagnis interpretations. By the start of the 20th century, cancer of the head of the pancreas had become a well-established diagnosis.Regarding the recognition of PanNETs, the possibility of cancer of the islet cells was initially suggested in 1888. The first case of hyperinsulinism due to a tumor of this type was reported in 1927. Recognition of a non-insulin-secreting type of PanNET is generally ascribed to the American surgeons, R. M. Zollinger and E. H. Ellison, who gave their names to Zollinger–Ellison syndrome, after postulating the existence of a gastrin-secreting pancreatic tumor in a report of two cases of unusually severe peptic ulcers published in 1955. In 2010, the WHO recommended that PanNETs be referred to as "neuroendocrine" rather than "endocrine" tumors.Small precancerous neoplasms for many pancreatic cancers are being detected at greatly increased rates by modern medical imaging. One type, the intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) was first described by Japanese researchers in 1982. It was noted in 2010 that: "For the next decade, little attention was paid to this report; however, over the subsequent 15 years, there has been a virtual explosion in the recognition of this tumor." Surgery
The first reported partial pancreaticoduodenectomy was performed by the Italian surgeon Alessandro Codivilla in 1898, but the patient only survived 18 days before succumbing to complications.