The findings confirm that one of the most lethal cancers kills not because it spreads like wildfire but because it does not cause symptoms until it is advanced.
Scientists say this provides a large window of opportunity to try to detect this cancer in the first 20 years of existence, before it's too late. They say, in principle, if caught early it could be cured with surgery.
The hard part is going to be screening. The pancreas is not easy to get to, and even if a tumor can be spotted before it gets too big, it requires complicated surgery to get it out.
