According to a study reported in the medical journal Gut, people who face a high genetic risk of any form of pancreatic cancer may not benefit much from routine screening for the disease.

Though the researchers, led by Dr. Peter Langer of Philipps-University Marburg in Germany, noted that the results of routine pancreatic cancer screening are generally dismal in hereditary cases; they, nonetheless, added that high-risk individuals should consult their doctors regularly.
Failing to support routine pancreatic cancer screening, the study said that the cancer is hardly ever caught early; and it is mostly after the cancer has spread that the symptoms - like weight loss, pain in the upper abdomen and jaundice – are detected.

Statistically speaking, the research confirmed that nearly 3 percent of all pancreatic cancer cases are largely ‘familial’ pancreatic cancer, whereby two or more first-degree relatives - a parent and child or siblings - have been affected by the disease.

For the study, Langer and his colleagues used a combination of techniques – like blood tests and various imaging tests - to try and identify early pancreatic cancer cases in 76 high-risk men and women.

However, it was further found that in spite of a timely prognosis of the cancer, only about 5 percent of patients managed to survive for five years after the diagnosis of the ailment.