The stats are not promising: This year 37,000 people will get pancreatic cancer, 34,000 will die from it.
There are few effective treatments, but now doctors are trying to heat things up and kill this deadly disease.
Joe Castelli loves to watch a good battle in the arena, but nothing could prepare him for his own fight with pancreatic cancer.
"I had pain on my side for months," said Joe.
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His future was bleak.
"Everything I read was all gloom and doom. (I asked) 'What's my life expectancy?' and she said probably a year," said Joe.
He found out about a new therapy that could increase his odds.
"I knew this is what I wanted to do," he said.
He's one of the first to take part in a clinical trial that uses fever to kill pancreatic cancer.
"We are using a temperature that you would get if you had a bad case of the flu," said Dr. Joan Bull, oncologist at U of Texas/Memorial Hermann Hospital.
Two days after chemo, he's put into total-body thermal therapy.
"I like to call it the hot box, and you're in there for eight hours," said Joe.
His temperature is raised from 98 degrees to 104 degrees.
"The fever is giving a startle, a cry for help to the immune system to say, arm yourself, get out here, do something," said Bull.
By waking up the immune system, doctors believe chemo can be more effective. Joe is in the treatment
once a month over a six-month period. The fever can be hard on a patient's heart and lungs and cause severe fatigue. Joe's gained ten pounds, has less pain, and renewed hope.
"I'm real optimistic that this is going to keep me alive for a long time," he said.
One of Dr. Bull's patients was given a year to live, but after this therapy lived for three-and-a-half years.
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