Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Lynn Matrisian on the Frontlines of Pancreatic Cancer – Education, Awareness, and Progress EP 373

Starting point is 00:00:00 coming up next on Passion Stripe. Immunotherapy, the K-RAS targeted therapy, and then things that disrupt that dense stromal that is characteristic of pancreatic cancer, things that will loosen that up and let drugs in better and let things work better. I was a third area of research and I think if we can learn how to use those three approaches, those things that make pancreatic cancer so difficult to treat, then we can get to the point where we can really start to control it and see good lots of cases of long-term survivors. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's

Starting point is 00:00:45 most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello everyone, I am so glad to welcome you back to Episode 373 of Passionstruck, which is consistently ranked by Apple as the number one alternative health podcast.

Starting point is 00:01:29 And thank you to all of you who come back every week to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we absolutely love it when you do that. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize into convenient playlists that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.

Starting point is 00:01:56 In case you missed it, I had an amazing interview earlier in the week with Jim Quick, founder and CEO of Quick Learning, New York Times best-selling author of Limitless and host of the Quick Brain podcast. We discuss how Jim has spent the last 25 years helping people improve their memory, learn to speed read, increase their decision-making skills, and unleash their super brains. An episode that if you haven't listened to it, you definitely want to go and check it out. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews, and if you love today's

Starting point is 00:02:24 episode or that one with Jim Quick, we would appreciate you giving it a five-star review and sharing it with your friends and families, and oh we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Today's discussion is incredibly close to my heart, as we recognize Pink Karate Cancer Awareness Day, we aim to cast a light on a subject that touches many lives, including my own. My sister Carolyn is currently battling pancreatic cancer. Fight that many of our listeners may know all too well within their own families. In a bid to amplify awareness and foster hope, it is my profound honor to welcome Dr. Lin Matrician, the chief science officer at the pancreatic cancer action network, otherwise known as Pancan.

Starting point is 00:03:00 Dr. Matrician's life's work resonates with the urgency and dedication that I've witnessed firsthand in my sister's journey. Her commitment to education and her leadership and research provide invaluable insight into the fight against this formidable disease. Our conversation today is not only timely but critical. We'll unravel the latest advancements in early detection. The field where Pancan's research is pioneering new pass and offering rays of hope. Education especially for those in high-risk communities, is paramount, and lens expertise will guide us through understanding, which populations are more vulnerable and why. We'll also delve into the specifics of PanCans mission to educate the public about the risks

Starting point is 00:03:37 and symptoms of pancreatic cancer, ensuring that this information reaches the ears that it needs most. Knowledge here is more than power, It's potentially life-saving. Together, we'll explore the new treatment frontiers, discuss how to support those at risk, and learn how every one of us can contribute to the battle against this disease. This episode is dedicated to all the warriors like my sister Carolyn, who are fighting with grace and courage every day. It's a conversation about hope, about science, and most importantly, about the individuals and families who stand to benefit

Starting point is 00:04:05 from these strides and research and awareness. So with a sense of purpose and hope for a future where pancreatic cancer is no longer a silent killer, let's welcome Dr. Lynn Matrysian to the steeply personal and paramount episode of the Passion Struck Podcast. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide

Starting point is 00:04:21 on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am so honored today to have Dr. Lynn Matrician on Passionstruck. Welcome, Lynn. Great to be here. I was hoping we might start out by giving the audience a little bit of information on what personally started your drive and dedication to understanding and fighting cancer.

Starting point is 00:04:52 Yes, I think like a lot of people, I was impacted by pancreatic cancer at a relatively early age. I was deciding what I wanted to do with my life. My major was in medical technology, so I was working in a hospital laboratory. They had a research laboratory there, and I just fell in love with research. I thought, oh my goodness, you can be the first person to know something, to ask interesting questions. And so I started down that path and about that time my elementary school best friend and next door neighbor was diagnosed with cancer and I had to go say goodbye to her.

Starting point is 00:05:32 And on the drive back, I remember saying if I have any talent in this research stuff, I have to work on cancer. That's what I have to do. And I was lucky enough to get into graduate school and end up doing cancer research. So you went from getting your degree to then really specializing in molecular biology as I understand it in cancer metastasis.

Starting point is 00:05:57 How close do you think we are to understanding the key drivers of how cancer spreads? What we've learned about cancer in my lifetime is amazing. I was actually born the year we discovered the DNA was in a helix. And so all these advances that have come from understanding how one cell makes multiple cells and what can go wrong with that to turn a normal cell

Starting point is 00:06:23 into a cancer cell. All that's happened in relatively recent years as you think about it. So as we learn more about it, we understand that there are normal processes that get taken over by genetic changes within a cancer cell. And these cells start doing things that they would never ordinarily do. And the real hallmark of cancer is they start spreading to other places. And they think that part of that is that they gain the ability to live in environments they wouldn't ordinarily live in. And this

Starting point is 00:07:00 is a survival mechanism. And they seek out environments that will support their growth and that's why cancer metastasizes. So there's been a lot of really interesting work on really trying to understand that and understanding at the molecular level so that we can figure out how to combat it with drug and devices like that. On the show, I've interviewed a bunch of medical professionals about the science of epigenetics and longevity science, people like Mark Heimann,

Starting point is 00:07:33 Carifits Gerald and others, and there seems to be a common thread of how lifestyle choices ultimately impact, not only your health span, but your lifespan. How much do those lifestyle choices and we're talking here, what you eat, how you sleep, how much exercise you get, your emotional state, how much do those same factors coincide

Starting point is 00:07:55 with the outbreak or emergence of cancer? Yeah, it's pretty clear that things like unhealthy metabolism being overweight, those types of things are risk factors for cancer. And so they do contribute to them. And so healthy lifestyle, good weight management, exercising, fresh air, all those types of things, good diet, all contribute to our overall health

Starting point is 00:08:24 and therefore our risk of developing cancer. It's all tied in. We're just amazingly complex machines and ecosystem in how all those things affect our ability to be healthy and our susceptibility to disease. Yeah, and I wanted to touch on one more thing specifically. And in this day and age, we seem to be bombarded by information everywhere. Our life seems to be going so much faster. And it was even for me a decade ago. And because of that, we have more and more stress that's coming into our lives.

Starting point is 00:09:01 Is there any correlation between that chronic stress load and the need to do mindfulness, meditation, exercise, other things, and cancer potentially forming in your body? So those are complex epidemiological studies that need to be done to really answer those questions definitively. But there is data and evidence that those kinds of things all impact cancer and how we deal with cancer if we get it. If I have a correct, you still are an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt, but you spent about two and a half decades there really doing significant cancer research. What caused you decide to shift your focus to patient advocacy and to join Pancan? Yeah, I loved my laboratory and my position

Starting point is 00:09:53 and it was a really wonderful career. I spent a little bit of time at the National Cancer Institutes and looking at what programs you could put in a national level that would really impact diseases like cancer. And that was really compelling to think about, I could do things with my laboratory, I could do things with my department, with my institution, with my colleagues.

Starting point is 00:10:21 But here was a way to actually impact it on a national level. I thought there was you could really make some major changes in a field. And I like the idea of working that closely with individuals impacted with the disease and really passionate about doing something and making it better for the next person who was diagnosed. So I looked into that as a possibility to do for the next stage of my career. Lynn, as you and I were talking before you came on, my sister is a pancreatic cancer survivor. She's currently still battling the steadily disease. But because of that, I have learned far more than I ever anticipated. I was going to learn about pancreatic cancer over the past few years. Correct me if what I'm saying is incorrect, but my understanding is pancreatic cancer is currently the third leading cause of death from different forms of cancer and it's on the cusp of becoming the second, primarily because we're finding ways for early detection and to treat other forms of cancer, which is making their

Starting point is 00:11:47 prognosis better. And so pancreatic cancer, unfortunately, is moving up the ladder because of that is part one. Is that pretty accurate? Yes. Yeah. If you look at those trend lines, and it's a study we did a couple years ago, that deaths from other cancer types are falling,

Starting point is 00:12:09 which is fabulous and overall it's falling. And so we've really made real advances, but the line that's going up and not going down is pancreatic cancer. And it will pass colorectal cancer soon and be number two in the number of deaths in this nation. It's not a race that we ever wanted to win and something that really brings home the importance of putting research advances, applying them to this disease.

Starting point is 00:12:39 Which is why it's so important that we're talking about this on pancreatic cancer awareness day. My other understanding, and I have a friend from high school, honestly, who's, I can't make this stuff up. She's married to one of the people who's been doing Whipple surgery longer than anyone at Johns Hopkins. My understanding and talking to him and talking to others is pancreatic cancer is so difficult because when you look at the pancreas protective membrane that is around it, I guess you could say difficult to penetrate that it makes things such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, other cancer treatment radiation much more difficult to interact with the pancreatic cancer cells that are underneath that membrane. Is that a correct understanding? Yep, it's one of those characteristics of pancreatic

Starting point is 00:13:33 cancer that looks so different from other cancer types. It builds up scar tissue around the tumor cells that make this very dense, hard capsule around and throughout the cancer. And that's exactly right. What that does is collapse the blood vessels. Drugs don't get in, can't get to the cancer cells as well. Whether it's because of that or other things, the immune system just doesn't. It's much more harder for, much harder for it to attack pancreatic cancer than other cancer types. It has alterations in a pathway called the K-RAS pathway and that happens in some other cancers, but it happens in almost all of the pancreatic cancer cases. There's really these things that set pancreatic cancer

Starting point is 00:14:26 apart from other cancer types. And we just have to work a little harder to take the things that we learned in other cancer types and make them work in pancreatic cancer. One of the things that I think is so important about what Pancan has been doing is you've been setting extremely aggressive charts for trying to have the number of pancreatic cancer deaths. And I know you've set another aggressive target.

Starting point is 00:14:58 What are the current survival rates for pancreatic cancers and what factors contribute to improving these rates? Yeah, so we track five-year relative survival rates. So 1% of pancreatic cancer patients diagnosed this year are anticipated to be alive five years from now. And when we started, it was at 4%. When pancans started, it's now at 12%. And it's gone up 1% each year for the past two years.

Starting point is 00:15:31 So I feel like we've got some momentum going that we're really getting there. And we set aggressive goals. That's where we're looking for 20% survival by 2030. And we hold ourselves accountable for that. And the way that you change survival rates is that you try to get better treatments, you try to get earlier diagnosis, you do better supportive care for people who have pancreatic cancer. And the thing that Pancan is so good at is that we look at all those things, that we look

Starting point is 00:16:07 at the holistic way of the disease and try to approach it from multiple ways so that we can make that increase in survival that we also desperately want. I wanted to go more deep into basically early detection, because as I understand it right now, there's different areas that pancreatic cancer can form, like at the head or the tail. One is easier to treat than the other, but whipple surgery currently seems to be the best option that's available if the disease is caught soon enough.

Starting point is 00:16:43 The issue is that it's often detected by the time that it's already metastasized, and therefore it's being caught in stage three or stage four, which limits the treatment options. All that being said, what are some of the ways that you and Pancan are trying to effectively get ahead of this with earlier detection mechanisms. Yes, you're absolutely right. One of the real problems is that so many people are diagnosed

Starting point is 00:17:13 and they already have metastatic disease in pancreatic cancer, which isn't necessarily the case at all in many other cancer types, which have much longer survival. So earlier you catch the disease, the better the survival rate, because of things like surgery, that surgery is the best way to get rid of cancer. You simply take it out. And so what we want to do is catch it earlier so that more people will be able to go to surgery and we can improve the overall survival. So how do you do that? So one way is making people aware of symptoms. So that's an important thing about this month of November and

Starting point is 00:17:52 today we're all patriotic cancer day is that's really important that people are aware that what of these symptoms are and to go ask their doctor about it. So they're relatively common systems symptoms. But if they persist, then you need to go to your doctor and just check it out and see if that's it. But then there are research paths that are being taken for earlier detection. One way is if you have a genetic predisposition, a genetic risk for pancreatic cancer,

Starting point is 00:18:24 it's good to know that because you can be screened regularly and that can catch it very early. That's important. That's about 10% of the cases of pancreatic cancer. So there are research efforts in that area. What we are doing at pancan is we're very interested in diabetes, new onset diabetes. It looks like type 2 diabetes. It happens to individuals usually over the age of 50. And it's actually a symptom of pancreatic cancer, but it's not recognized as such. So we think if people would recognize that as a symptom, get an image, a CT scan, or an MRI right then and there, that we could catch it much earlier than when it's usually diagnosed, when there's a lot of other symptoms that finally

Starting point is 00:19:13 result in a diagnosis. And so we have a research effort to use new onset diabetes as a trigger for the earlier detection of pancreatic cancer. So those types of things are, we think, that will help. There are blood tests. We would all like to have a blood test for pancreatic cancer. There are blood tests being developed for many cancer types that may work on a general population. They are on the market, but we need more research to really know how good they are for early detection of pancreatic cancer and other cancer types. Those are the types of things that are in the works. It's exciting time research-wise for this. You still have a ways to go, but we're getting there.

Starting point is 00:20:01 In terms of genetic testing, does Breckup or having the Breckad gene, which you typically think of having breast cancer or a variant cancer, is there any link between that and pancreatic cancer? Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yes, there is. For both Brocka one and in particular for Brocka two, for the form of the disease. But yes, that's an elevated risk for pancreatic cancer. A lot of people are much more aware of the risk for breast or ovarian cancer and don't realize that pancreatic cancer is also a risk. There are surveillance programs where people with those genetic inherited

Starting point is 00:20:39 alterations can get regular screening for pancreatic cancer, as well as these other cancer types. And there's several genes as well that predispose to pancreatic cancer and some other types of cancers. We've learned a lot in the last decade or two about what to look for in terms of risk. We a lot of the listeners have heard Maria Menuno's story. I know she's one of your ambassadors right now for this month and for the campaigns that

Starting point is 00:21:11 you're running. Her case is a little bit different because I understand that where her cancer is located is not the most aggressive area for pancreatic cancer, but in her case, it was discovered because she was fortunate enough to do a whole body MRI scan. Is that my thinking of this correctly? That's my understanding. Okay, which unfortunately given its cost is not something that is given out to the general public,

Starting point is 00:21:40 although if it was, it would catch not only a whole bunch of different cancers, but a whole bunch of other things that would probably save the medical insurance company, apparatus, a lot more money by paying for that test than the repercussions of not doing it. Do you ever foresee this type of testing becoming more common and affordable for the general public? and affordable for the general public? That's a really hard question. In terms of it being recommended as something that everybody should do on a regular basis to catch cancer early, I have a hard time thinking that's ever really going to work. I think that both the cost effectiveness and just the downside, if you weigh the benefits

Starting point is 00:22:26 versus the cost and risk and other things that are coming. I don't know for sure, I don't have a crystal ball, but I find it a little hard to think that would be the way that we would go. I think this idea of blood tests that would then narrow down the population and tell you this person is worth looking in this organ to see if they have cancer or not is a much more effective and adaptable approach to cancer screening. Yeah, that way you could look at all the masses and start boiling it down to a subset. And then from that subset, you could then take it down to a micro level, which fits more into the common care system that

Starting point is 00:23:12 we're all part of today. I'm asking all these background questions because in the case of my sister, she did not have, Brackup, she did not have any of the genes or a genetic history to have pancreatic cancer and when this hit her at 46. You're thinking young and of the spectrum, a person who's working out constantly in very good shape, very mindful about what she's eating, etc. And for her, it just started out that she started to feel incredibly tired doing the daily routines and workouts, etc. that she was accustomed to. And she really didn't know what it was until she became jaundiced. And that's what really gave them the inclination that something was a mess. I think

Starting point is 00:24:00 that's one of the hard parts about this is when you don't know what's causing that and she wasn't showing signs of being a type 2 diabetic. It's hard sometimes to figure out what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. So when you think about all of this, and since you've been in this role now for quite some time, what are some of the most common misconceptions about pig-creatic cancer that you encounter? Well, it is a deadly disease, an aggressive disease, but there is hope, and there are things that are being done all the time. So I think the first thing to realize is that there's things to do that if one gets this

Starting point is 00:24:44 diagnosis. An unfortunate, like your sister, there isn't always risk factors or any symptoms that give you an indication that something's happened. In the case of John does, yes, absolutely. Get that checked out immediately because that is not normal, so that makes sense. What we tell people to do in that case is call PanCan.

Starting point is 00:25:06 Call us at the PanCradic Cancer Action Network. We have trained people on the phones by email that have talked to people before that have been facing this and can really help navigate all the things that need to be done at that particular point in time. Okay. And from your perspective as the chief science officer, what do you think are some of the most promising areas of pancreatic cancer research that are currently underway? There's some exciting new advances in being able to target that K-RAS pathway that I was talking about that so many pancreatic cancer cases are,

Starting point is 00:25:48 that's being driven. It's really driving the growth of those cells through this pathway. And we've always considered it undrugable that it was just not something that we had a drug for. And there's been recent advances over the last really couple years that say, oh, that's no longer true, there are drugs that can target this pathway. So that's incredibly exciting, I think, as a real advance. And that should really just shut down the cancer.

Starting point is 00:26:18 Now cancers are really quite resilient. They have a lot of survival mechanisms. And so the approach I like for that people to keep it under control for longer periods of time is to get your own immune system to recognize that as foreign and to keep it under check. And so both immunotherapy, the K-RAS targeted therapy, and then things that disrupt that dense stromo we were talking about earlier that is characteristic of pancreatic cancer, things that will loosen that up and let drugs in better and let things work better. I think it was a third area

Starting point is 00:27:00 of research, and I think if we can learn how to use those three approaches, those things that make pancreatic cancer so difficult to treat, I think then we can get to the point where we can really start to control it and see lots of cases of long-term survivors. We have long-term survivors. There are in some cases we've figured out how to give those individuals a long and productive and healthy lifespan, but we have to do it for more people. We have to be able to find additional ways to expand that. Okay, and I just wanted to make a note here that earlier in the year, I also interviewed Julie Flushman, who is the CEO of of Pancan and she and I went really deep

Starting point is 00:27:46 into this area. If you're looking for more information, I will put it in the show notes, but that's a great episode to turn back to. Another one that I did about this time last year was my sister and I actually interviewed Dr. Mike Pishfin, who is at Johns Hopkins and is on the forefront of really looking at this next generation of clinical trials that are out there. And some of the advice that he gave, and I wanted to see if this resonates with you, is he said things are changing so quickly, that the best thing that a pancreatic cancer

Starting point is 00:28:21 patient can do right now is buy themselves time because new treatments are coming out all the time and he also gave Carolyn advice that the most important thing for her to do is to start really understanding for biomarkers, understanding her gene mutations because he thinks that is the area where he's seeing the most hope right now. You mentioned it, the Keras variety.

Starting point is 00:28:47 It's typically the CD, the ones, but finding clinical trials or other treatment protocols that go after that. He said what he's really hopeful for in immunotherapy is that they need to find a delivery vehicle. He thinks that the way that this is going to happen is through this biomarker and understanding how to use that as a vehicle to penetrate and then to use immunotherapy to do the treatment. I know Carolyn has discovered that there are now some clinical trials that are combining the specialized chemotherapy that they're using to go after the biomarkers in combination

Starting point is 00:29:22 with immunotherapy that are having some good results. Yeah, that sounds just right. And Mike Pishfian is a wonderful doctor and has done some really amazing work in this area. He's collaborated, he's been quite a good colleague to the Penn Cradi Cancer Action Network. And we've worked together on some studies. We have this Know Your Tumor Program

Starting point is 00:29:44 where we provide molecular profiling to individuals who call our help line. And we've learned from that. And Dr. Pishfian and I and other colleagues have worked together to understand what that means and how we can then use that for the next patient that we see. And yes, that's exactly right.

Starting point is 00:30:04 We can learn so much. I'm a molecular biologist. I believe there's information in those molecules that make a cancer different from a normal cell. And if we can understand that, we can then find ways to turn off those pathways, revert that cancer to more of a normal cell. And so these are all ways that people

Starting point is 00:30:26 throughout the world, throughout the United States are working on. And you take that basic research, basic understanding it, turn it into clinical trials, something that you can actually treat patients with. And then ask if it really improves outcomes. And that's how we make advances in a disease like this and any disease. Well, and I'm gonna switch gears. I know one of the biggest things that Pancan is working on in addition to early detection

Starting point is 00:30:55 and to help people find treatment plans, find clinical trials is the complex task of education. And I understand that this is especially difficult in high-risk communities. What strategies have proven most effective in trying to reach these high-risk communities? We find that it's really a personal connection that helps people understand the information and makes it important to them, makes it relevant to them. So we have affiliate networks, we have 60 plus affiliates across the United States that raise awareness, that raise funds, that educate the community about pancreatic cancer and

Starting point is 00:31:44 can say, call pancan, this is what you need to do. So we find that having people affected by pancreatic cancer who are passionate and understand the importance of people knowing that there's help knowing in essence what the steps they need to take, that really is incredibly important. And we do that a lot of times by our personal interactions with people through our affiliate networks and making this big community across the United States that can help anybody who finds themselves interested and having to know something about pancreatic cancer, whether they wanted to or not. I understand that you guys have a couple of resources that I just wanted to bring to bear in case the audience wanted to access them. One of those is I understand you have a 10 question test

Starting point is 00:32:36 that helps people to learn more about pancreatic cancer risk factors and what might increase your risk, where can someone take that test? So go to pancan.org, www.pancan.org, www.pancan.org and right now right on the front page, you'll see information about understanding your risk. There it is again, a 10 simple questions, but just gives you a sense of what your risk might be and gives you a place to find out more information and follow that up. Okay, and I also understand you have something called the family history worksheet. How would someone use that? Again, go on pancan.org. It's important, the things like how many people in your family have had pancreatic cancer.

Starting point is 00:33:27 At what age have they had it? Have they had other cancers? These are the types of things that sometimes you have to go digging and you have to ask somebody and ask relatives and fill that out. But it's actually a very good thing to know about what is your family history of cancer in general and will help you understand your risk of pancreatic cancer in particular. So these are all this worksheet will help you know what questions to ask and to be prepared to take it to your physician and find out should I get tested for one of these predisposition genes or not? What we really recommend is anybody who's had pancreatic cancer, who has the disease get tested, and that tells us whether we also need to test their relatives or not.

Starting point is 00:34:17 I just wanted to bring this up that pancreatic cancer can affect anyone regardless of race, however, it tends to affect black Americans and Native Americans and some Jewish populations more than others. And I understand that you have a funded study called Regenerate that people in those communities might be interested in as well. Yes, very much. We generate was a very nice study that was done to look at people with pancreatic cancer and Identify whether they had a predisposition and then whether their relatives did or not But it turns out that we had very little diversity in that study

Starting point is 00:34:58 So we learned a lot about white Americans, but we didn't learn a lot about these other populations white Americans, but we didn't learn a lot about these other populations. We are funding a pilot study to do some very some focus groups, some good work and understanding how do we reach these communities. How do we ask these people to come and get genetic testing? What do we have to tell them how do we make it available? How do we make this resource easy to get for them? We're getting ready to publish a paper now on what we've learned from that study and then apply what we've learned to expanding that study and actually trying to put it into

Starting point is 00:35:38 practice. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing that. And now I wanted to just go into a little bit about your other mission, which is advocacy, and working at both a national level and at a global level. What ways has PanCans researched an advocacy influenced or changed the conversation about pancreatic cancer treatment

Starting point is 00:36:03 and patient care? the conversation about pancreatic cancer treatment and patient care. Yeah, certainly we track that whether people know about us that's been improving in terms of people being in that position, we're here to help. This is what we do. This is what we really care about and continue to do that. So our advocacy extends in terms of awareness, but we also do government advocacy. We want to make sure that the National Cancer Institute, that the government has pancreatic cancer on their radar knows how much it means to us, and that we are affecting that change in that way as well. Okay, and something I just wanted to put out there

Starting point is 00:36:53 for the listeners or the viewers is your advocacy matters. The more that you are talking to your senators and Congress and wealthy donors, etc. All of this matters because all of this comes down to funding. And a lot of times, money, as I understand it, is being allocated to other cancers because they're seeing in some cases more progress being made,

Starting point is 00:37:20 but pancreatic cancer really needs more money coming into the system. Some more research can be done, which I think is a really critical aspect of this. And that is that your voice matters, and we need more people being active out there trying to get more money aimed at not only Pancan, but helping research facilities and our major scientific universities to have the funding to do more research to go after this. That's exactly right.

Starting point is 00:37:50 If the constituents are passionate about something, we need to transmit that to our elected officials, and they need to make sure that's heard in when they're making policy decisions and funding decisions. A really good example of that is that there's a department of defense allocation for funding for certain cancer types. And a couple years ago, our voices were loud enough and we were effective enough in making sure

Starting point is 00:38:19 that there's an allocation for pancreatic cancer research through the department of Defense, the Congressional Director Medical Research Programs. So that is just a clear way of which, raising our voices can result in real dollars that go into really good research, really innovative research that type of stuff that isn't necessarily done by other government agencies and they can

Starting point is 00:38:45 really contribute to getting us where we want to go with improving outcomes from pancreatic cancer. I have a friend here who unfortunately has had cancer six times. He hasn't had pancreatic cancer, thank God. He has written a book and he has told me that regardless of what type of cancer you have, the most important thing is for you to realize that you are the CEO of your life. And that the way he words it is you need to run your cancer journey as if it's running a business because there's so many elements of this from planning out your trips to the

Starting point is 00:39:20 doctors who you need to seek out, how you need to canvas that, to where you need to put your money, to preparing for trips, to understanding your caregivers, everything. Is that an analogy that you would recommend as well? Yeah, well, certainly the voice of experience, but yes, we would very much advocate that you need to be your own advocate when you're faced with a disease like this, and that asking questions, probing on things, understanding, getting knowledge so that you can make good decisions. Those are all a critical part to any big decisions and your cancer treatment is going to be a

Starting point is 00:40:03 big decision. And so it really does. I would agree with your friend that taking some responsibility and some accountability for this, not just letting it happen, but being a very active participant in this is critical. It's the way to really get the best results. Then, then lastly, looking forward, what is your vision for the future of pancreatic cancer research and the possible potential for a cure? Yeah, I am optimistic that we will be able to identify

Starting point is 00:40:39 pancreatic cancer early, that we will be able to bring all the tools at our disposal to its eradication and that we'll be able to control it. I think it'll be a long time before we're able to prevent it, but I think we'll be able to control it and to live a normal, healthy life. And that's really the goal. And I am optimistic that there are some very passionate and dedicated people in this field that really want to make a difference and I think we will just continue to work at it until that happens. Thank you, Lynn.

Starting point is 00:41:14 Any closing remarks you wanted to give or any more information you wanted to share about Pancan? Well, just if you find yourself indeed of information about pancreatic cancer, pancan.org. We are here. This is what we do. We want to help you be your best advocate and give you the resources, the information that you need to make your best decisions. We are optimistic and are creating hope for the future.

Starting point is 00:41:42 A person the audience understands once you call it up, hand can, if you are a person who's been recently diagnosed, my understanding is you're assigned to a case manager who kind of then works with you, helps you figure out, what are your best treatment options, where would you go for something like the Whipple surgery, and then if it's in a more advanced stage, but you've got resources also that could help you with your diet, help you with planning,

Starting point is 00:42:09 your whole treatment, allocation, and then of course where the clinical trials are. Yeah, our case managers are wonderful. This is what they do and they will listen and customize, really give you the kind of information you need then. If you need to call back a week, two weeks a month, whatever later with for their care and support, get the right treatment, and get the right test to get the right treatment. So if we do all those things, I think that really puts people on the right track for dealing with this disease. Well, then thank you so much for joining us today. It was our honor to bring you on and hopefully spread some information that the audience can use to help a loved one

Starting point is 00:43:08 or potentially help themselves. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to spread the word. And I wish you and your sister all the best. Thank you so much. I was so honored to be able to do that interview, especially on pancreatic cancer awareness day

Starting point is 00:43:24 with Dr. Lynn Matreson. and I wanted to thank Lynn and Pancan for the honor of having her appear on today's show. Links to all things Lynn will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use the website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Videos are on YouTube, and both John Armyles and Passion Struck clips. I have an exciting announcement that my brand new book, PassionStruct, is now available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you purchase books.

Starting point is 00:43:50 Links will also be in the show notes. You can go to LinkedIn and sign up for my newsletter, Work Intentionally. You can find me on all the social platforms at John Armiles, or you can sign up for my personal development newsletter, live intentionally, at passionstruct.com. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one canineo place passionstruck.com slash deals.

Starting point is 00:44:08 You're about to hear a preview of the passionstruck podcast interview I did with Executive Coach Jerry Klona who uses the skills that he's learned as a venture capitalist to help entrepreneurs and business leaders. He is a co-founder and CEO of Reboot, the executive coaching in leadership development company. Post of the Reboot podcast, an author of the great new book, Reunion, Leadership and the Longing to Belong. If you grow up socialized to quote not be vulnerable, then you are in effect distancing yourself from your own heart. And how can one come to know oneself if you don't even know your heart?

Starting point is 00:44:43 I have a reputation, John. Wired magazine did an article on me and the headline was, this man makes founders cry. The joke is that I make people cry because I ask them how they are, but I ask it like I really care. And what typically causes the tears to fall at that point is the realization that they've not been heard and they may not even be able to answer the question, how am I themselves? Because they're so disconnected from themselves. The fee for the shows that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful are interesting.

Starting point is 00:45:21 You know someone who's dealing with pancreatic cancer in any shape performed, then please share this very important episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become Ash and Star. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Lynn Matrisian on the Frontlines of Pancreatic Cancer – Education, Awareness, and Progress EP 373

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