Pancreatic cancer is often deadly. But recent discoveries are starting to unravel its mysteries — and raise hope

Pancreatic cancer is deadly: It’s difficult to detect and bedeviling to treat. Just 20 percent of patients survive a year after diagnosis. Less than 10 percent make it to the five-year mark.

But recent discoveries — both in the lab and in patients — are raising hope. They’re still early stage. Yet they offer new insight into the causes and progression of the disease — and they may ultimately help doctors better detect, and treat, this difficult cancer.

Here, a look at four key findings:

Pancreatic tumors are often studded with bacteria that deflect chemo

We’re learning more and more that the billions of microbes in our body have profound effects on how tumors grow — and on whether treatments have a shot at working. Just this fall, researchers that they’d found bacteria in colon and pancreatic cancers that actually