[Sciutto:] Some very sad news this morning. The television icon, "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek, he's hosted that show for nearly 35 years. Announcing in public, with a video, that he's been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer.
[Harlow:] He is 78 years old, and he posted this moving message to fans on Wednesday, saying he will fight this.
[Alex Trebek, Host, Jeopardy!:] I'm going to fight this. And I'm going to keep working. And with the love and support of my family and friends, and with the help of your prayers, also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease. Truth told? I have to. Because under the terms of my contract, I have to host "Jeopardy!" for three more years, so help me.
[Harlow:] Oh. We all want to help him. With us now is our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. He's such a staple in so many American households, living rooms, every evening. But you look at the numbers, you know? I think a statistic I read, 95 percent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer die. Why?
[Elizabeth Cohen, Cnn Senior Medical Correspondent:] Right. I mean, the numbers really are so sobering. So, Poppy, what that number is, is that if you look at people with pancreatic cancer that's stage IV, so advanced cancer that's spread to distant parts of the body, five years after that diagnosis, only three percent of them are still alive. Those are not great numbers. Now, the American Cancer Society makes a point of saying, "Look, this you can't predict what's going to happen to any one person." And so obviously we are all praying and wishing Alex Trebek the best. But those are sort of the average, the average statistics that talk about what typically happens.
[Sciutto:] Now, there are folks who survive. And some famous folks who survive, RBG survived pancreatic cancer. And those are hopeful stories, but you don't want it to give undue hope. What are the treatment options that make that more likely?
[Cohen:] Right. So, Jim, what they really try to focus on is chemotherapy for this disease. And doctors are very clear, they're not thinking about curing it at this stage. Really, what they're thinking of is slowing the progression and keeping the patient as comfortable as possible.
[Text:] Pancreatic Cancer: Most patients are older than 45; Nearly 90 percent are older than 55; Average age of diagnosis is 71
[Cohen:] So mainly, that's chemotherapy. Some patients do get surgery. But it's not the kind of surgery that we hear of, for example, for a lump in a woman's breast, where you're hoping to remove all of it. They don't usually remove all of it because by the time pancreatic cancer is diagnosed, typically is has spread pretty far and it's really impossible to remove all of it.
[Harlow:] So it would all I mean, as you noted, the key reason here, why it's so deadly is because of the lack of symptoms, right? It's not like some of the other cancers where you have these symptoms. So it's almost as though if there were something to make it more symptomatic, it would be so helpful.
[Cohen:] Right. It actually would be better, ironically, if people felt sick. But people often don't feel sick at the beginning stages, or at the stage where pancreatic cancer is diagnosed.
[Text:] Pancreatic Cancer in the
[U.s:] Fourth leading cause of death from cancer; Around 56,770 new cases will be diagnosed this year; Estimated 45,750 people will die from this cancer this year
[Cohen:] So they have pancreatic cancer, it's spread, but they often feel OK. And so the first signs are often things like jaundice or unexplained weight loss, or, oddly enough, itching is also another sign. But, you know, by the time these signs show up, usually the pancreatic cancer has spread. And there are some other reasons why it's so difficult to treat this disease, and why it is so deadly. One of them is that the pancreas is, it's way in there. It is deep in the middle of your abdomen. The organ itself doesn't have any kind of capsule around it, so it really spreads quite quickly.
[Harlow:] Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for reporting
[Cohen:] Thanks.
[Harlow:] this. Alex Trebek, with his humor always, right? We're thinking of you. The Republican-controlled Senate is set to hold a hearing on gun control. This is a big deal. We'll have an exclusive report on it next.