With its grim prognosis and high fatality rate, pancreatic cancer ranks as the fourth–highest cancer killer in the United States. As many patients continue to develop and battle the disease—including Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs—researchers have struggled to understand and isolate its causes. This month, Harvey A. Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, has been awarded $574,007 from the National Cancer Institute to identify and evaluate factors associated with its development and growth.
The NCI grant will advance Risch’s research into causes, risk factors and preventative methods against cancer of the pancreas, a gland in the abdomen that produces fluid, enzymes and hormones involved in digestion. After several years of studying pancreatic cancer patients in Connecticut, Risch has theorized that the disease is related to the organ’s exposure to nitrites and to chronic excess gastric acidity, related to smoking and dietary intake. Risch has also identified a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori, which lives in the stomachs of about one–third of the population, as playing a role in the cause of pancreatic cancer, in combination with the immune system and other factors.
Risch and colleague Herbert Yu, M.D., Ph.D., at the Yale School of Public Health, and Yu–Tang Gao, M.D., at the Shanghai Cancer Institute, are carrying out a parallel NIH–funded study of pancreas cancer in Shanghai, China, where they are exploring the same risk factors in a population with different immune system characteristics.
Risch also maintains an interest in the role of reproductive factors, diet and genetics in causing pancreatic and other tumors. His other major research projects have included studies of ovarian, esophageal and stomach cancer.