US Supreme Court Justice and progressive equal rights crusader Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, 18 September, due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer, reported CNN.
Ginsburg was known globally for her progressive votes on issues on social issues like abortion rights, affirmative action and same-sex marriage.
She suffered five bouts of cancer, and had a recurrence in 2020. She had long-maintained that she would continue to serve in the Court till she was 90 and wrote in a statement from July 2020,
“I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that.”US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ginsburgh was only the second woman to serve in America’s Supreme Court, and was known for her left-leaning position on a majority conservative bench. She spoke her mind and became known in popular culture as Notorious RBG by her army of fans online - a nod to the late rapper The Notorious BIG.
She had a hard life and battled against the odds, often saying that despite being at the top of her classes at Cornell, Columbia and Harvard she struggled to get a job in the legal profession. "I had three strikes against me. One, I was Jewish. Two, I was a woman. But the killer was I was a mother of a four-year-old child," she said in an interview with CBS in 2016.
She nonetheless carved a space for herself and worked in several sex discirination cases in the 1970s. Fellow Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said Ginsburg "changed the face of American anti-discrimination law,” reported NDTV.
What is Pancreatic Cancer? Know Why It’s The Toughest Cancer
Pancreatic cancer has been called one of the deadliest cancers in the world. And it is at an all-time high. A study of 195 countries found that the number of pancreatic cancer cases increased by 130 per cent between 1990 and 2017.
“Pancreatic cancer is one of the world’s deadliest cancers, with an overall five-year survival rate of just five per cent in high, middle and low-income countries.”Reza Malekzadeh, Leas author of the study and Professor at Tehran University, Iran
According to a Lancet study from October 2015, pancreatic cancer is the 13th most common cancer worldwide
With an unusually high mortality rate, it is the eight most common cause of death from cancer. Over a quarter million people worldwide have lost their lives to it.
Dr Praveen Garg, Senior Consultant, Surgical Oncology, Apollo Hospital, told FIT in an earlier article that there are instances of five cases per 1 lakh of the population.
Survival rates are among the worst for any tumor, with the mortality to incidence ratio of 98 percent. It is among the tumors with worst survival rates.Lancet study
What makes pancreatic cancer so deadly is the lack of symptoms during early stages when it is most treatable, reports CNN.
Experts say, there are no screening tools specific to this kind of cancer. As a result, in many cases, the discovery of the disease gets delayed.
If the cancer is detected early on, it can be controlled by surgical removal of the pancreas. However, the viability of this treatment varies from case to case and depends on how far the cancer has spread. The presence of microscopic tumour cells, left behind due to any reason after the surgery, can further cause the cancer to recur.
What Are Some Causes of Pancreatic Cancer?
- Type 2 diabetes is a known cause for this kind of cancer.
- Lifestyle choices like smoking and drinking also puts you at risk.
- Other factors that could lead to pancreatic cancer include chronic pancreatitis and excess body weight.
- One of the significant reasons behind pancreatic cancer include age.
A Lancet study says the risk is almost 20 times higher for individuals older than 50 years as compared to younger persons. As for other cancers, fewer than 10 percent of cases of pancreatic cancer occur among individuals younger than 55 years old, and the median age of onset is 71 years.
As is true of any form of cancer, age does make an individual more prone to pancreatic cancer, affirms Dr Garg.
Men are more prone to pancreatic cancer than women. Dr Subham Pant says that eating a clean diet, replete with fruits and vegetables and avoiding smoking completely is a good measure to protect yourself against pancreatic cancer.
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