Patrick Swayze Dies at 57

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Patrick Swayze, who starred in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, his doctor says.

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While Wednesday's statement on the condition of Patrick Swayze from his physician, Dr. George Fisher, did not go into the specific treatment that the actor is receiving, Swayze's rep did offer some additional information.

Swayze is currently undergoing chemotherapy – not radiation – and he has not lost his hair (which can sometimes happen as a result of chemo), the star's publicist, Annett Wolf, tells PEOPLE.

She added that, for the time being, there is no way to gauge how long the treatment is expected to last.

Furthermore, contrary to some reports, Swayze was not diagnosed in January, following gastrointestinal surgery, but far more recently.

In addition, she said, Swayze's daily routine has remained unchanged, and his doctors are extremely optimistic regarding his prognosis.

The good news, Wolf emphasized, is that the cancer has not spread.

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A pilot television series starring Patrick Swayze is still in contention to become a series, despite the actor's recent diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, the network A&E has confirmed.

Swayze's doctor is optimistic about the Dirty Dancing star's prognosis, saying he has a "very limited amount of disease and appears to be responding well to treatment".


Patrick Swayze with wife Lisa Niemi. The 55-year-old actor is said to be responding well to treatment


So if the show, entitled The Beast, is picked up, the actor hopes to be a part of it, his representative Annett Wolf said. "Patrick is continuing his normal schedule during this time, which includes working on upcoming projects."

The Beast, in which Swayze plays what has been described as a seasoned but unorthodox FBI veteran, is "in contention to become one of the new drama series on the network," cable network A&E said. "However, at this time all of our thoughts are solely with Patrick and his family. We are all wishing for a speedy recovery to a truly gifted actor."

Describing the pilot, Tana Nugent Jamieson, of A&E's drama programming department, told the Hollywood Reporter last autumn: "Patrick plays a tough, darker character that needs some likeability, and he definitely has that." In the show, Swayze's FBI agent trains an innocent, new partner.

Swayze has been undergoing treatment at Stanford University's cancer centre and is under the care of oncologist Dr. George Fisher. In a statement, Dr Fisher contradicted reports the actor was terminally ill with just weeks to live. "All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue. We are considerably more optimistic."

However, pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest types of the disease. The National Cancer Institute estimates there will be 37,680 new cases of pancreatic cancer in 2008 with 34,290 deaths in the US - only five percent of patients live more than five years after diagnosis.

Ms Wolf said Swayze, 55, shot The Beast pilot last December and was currently not working on any new projects.

He appears in a film called Powder Blue, which is due for release later this year, alongside Jessica Biel and Oscar winner Forest Whitaker.

Before he turned to acting, Swayze was a professional dancer and accomplished figure skater. The roles that turned into a Hollywood hot property were Dirty Dancing and Ghost, with Demi Moore.

After the death of his father and his sister's suicide, however, Swayze slid into alcoholism and spent time in rehab. His fortunes picked up with a role in the 2001 cult film Donnie Darko and in 2003, he returned to stage musicals, joining the cast of Chicago on Broadway.

In 2006, he made his West End debut alongside Claire Sweeney in Guys and Dolls.

Swayze has been married for over 30 years to Lisa Niemi, who he met at one of his mother's dance classes. Off screen, he lives close to nature on ranches he owns in California and New Mexico.

"I live a very mountain-man life," Swayze told the Daily Telegraph in 2006. "I run 300 head of cattle, have raised Arabian horses for more than 20 years and own a wildlife preserve. Everything I know in life I know from nature."

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NEW YORK (AP) — Whoopi Goldberg says her friend Patrick Swayze — who was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer — is the reason she won an Oscar for "Ghost."

"When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg recalled Thursday on ABC daytime talk show "The View."

Goldberg, who starred alongside Swayze in the 1990 film, earned a best supporting actress trophy for her portrayal of psychic Oda Mae Brown, who helps slain businessman Sam Wheat (Swayze) communicate with his grieving fiancee and solve the mystery of his murder.

The 52-year-old actress-comedian said Swayze persuaded director Jerry Zucker to cast her in the film amid "some resistance." According to Goldberg, Swayze said, "I'm not making this movie unless you put Whoopi Goldberg in there."

Swayze, 55, has been undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, his representative Annett Wolf said Wednesday.

In a statement released by Wolf, Swayze's physician Dr. George Fisher said he was "optimistic" about the "Dirty Dancing" actor's prognosis for battling the disease: "Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far."

Goldberg said she hadn't spoken to Swayze about his health.

"We want you to feel better — we'll talk soon, I hope," she said.

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Patrick Swayze will likely face an uphill battle in his fight against pancreatic cancer, physicians say.

The actor's publicists released a statement Wednesday, after reports in the National Enquirer and other publications said doctors had told the "Dirty Dancing" star he had only five weeks left to live.

"Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far," George Fisher, Swayze's physician, said in the statement. "All of the reports stating the time frame of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue. We are considerably more optimistic."

But even though the five-week time frame trumpeted by tabloids may be false, cancer specialists say that pancreatic cancer more often than not comes with a daunting prognosis.

Indeed, according to statistics from the National Cancer Institute, patients diagnosed with the disease have only a one-in-20 shot of being alive five years after the cancer is found. And the patient advocacy group Pancreatic Cancer Action Network pegs the average life expectancy for a patient diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that has spread at three to six months.

Part of the reason that this cancer is so deadly is that there is no reliable screening test for the disease. Adding to the problem is the fact that the symptoms that indicate the presence of the illness are easy to miss or misclassify -- abdominal pains, loss of appetite, weight loss and possible jaundice.

And once symptoms appear, it is often too late.

"Sixty [percent] to 70 percent of pancreatic cancers are diagnosed in the most advanced stage -- when it has spread to other organs -- and we have, at best, minimally effective therapies for advanced pancreatic cancer," said William Blackstock, professor of radiation oncology at the Wake Forest University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"In most cases we don't even get a chance to cure it; at the time of presentation and the clinical manifestation of the symptoms, the cat's already out of the bag," said Andrew Warshaw, surgeon-in-chief at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston.

"For 80-plus percent, maybe even 90 percent of people at the time the diagnosis is first made, there is nothing beyond palliative care to help them," he says.

The numbers only get worse from there. Of the 20 percent of patients who are eligible for treatment, only about 20 percent are still alive after five years, Warshaw says, adding, "we're getting down to some small numbers."


Swayze Faces Treatment
Though the statement issued by Swayze's publicists does not delve into the details of his treatment, oncologists say the usual treatment plan for the disease combines both chemotherapy and surgery.

"If the patient's medical status is good -- no liver or kidney abnormalities and a functional patient -- treatment would likely consist of chemotherapy," said Harold Frucht of the Pancreatic Cancer Prevention & Genetics Program at Columbia University in New York. "If there is a response, this would indicate a good short-term prognosis."

If the cancer has not already spread to other organs, Frucht says the best approach would be to try to use chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, allowing for a less dangerous surgery to remove the cancerous tissue. However, if the cancer has already spread, chemotherapy is the best bet for keeping it in check.

The best bet, however, is not always a great bet. Neither chemotherapy nor radiation has been reliably shown effective in dealing with pancreatic cancer, even in the best of circumstances.

And new experimental approaches to treat the disease are "unfortunately, not very promising," said David Patrick Ryan, clinical director of the Tucker Gosnell Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Massachusetts General Hospital. "The latest trials of [cancer drugs] Avastin and Cetuximab -- for which we had a lot of hope -- were negative."

And surgery for pancreatic cancer is a risky proposal. Frucht says few surgeons in the country even possess the expertise needed to perform the operation.


Hope for the Future
Facing such odds, patients -- and even their doctors -- often view palliative care as the best course of action.

"There is a sense of nihilism among many treating physicians that says, 'why even subject these patients to surgery?'" Warshaw said. "Fifty percent of these patients don't get full treatment, which furthers this self-fulfilling prophecy."

This is bad news for the estimated 37,680 people the National Cancer Institute says will be diagnosed with the disease this year. And the institute projects that in 2008, 34,290 will die from the disease.

But trials on experimental treatments continue. And Mark Talamonti, division chief of surgical oncology at the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation in Chicago, says that with this research comes hope for many whose lives will be touched by this dreadful disease.

"[This is] promising in two senses," Talamonti said. "One, that clinically relevant research is being conducted in this disease, and two, that some differences in treatments is actually being demonstrated, considering the historically pessimistic outlook regarding treatment effectiveness for pancreatic cancer."

Warshaw adds that Swayze could even benefit from some of the strides that have been made in the treatment of the disease in the last two decades. And his continuing battle could bring more attention to a cancer that affects the lives of tens of thousands of Americans.

"It's a frightening disease ... but we are better right now at tailoring appropriate treatment to individuals," he said. "We're better able to provide the right treatment for the right patient.

"We've made a lot of progress in the past 20 years."

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Patrick Swayze is fighting a two-front war.

As he continues his year-plus battle with pancreatic cancer, the star of The Beast is also fighting what he calls inaccurate media reports.

His latest target: a tabloid that this week trumpets "The End" for Swayze, 56, in a cover story illustrated by photos of him looking gaunt. In fact, Swayze says in this exclusive statement to PEOPLE, the reality is much different – he's continuing with treatment, working on a book and even has a new dog:

"It's amazing to me that the tabloids such as The National Enquirer print such negative stories about me and my health when there are so many positive things going on in my life right now. I've started a new chemotherapy and, once again, I am one of the lucky ones with pancreatic cancer that is responding well to the treatment.

There is a brand new, 12-week-old, Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy named Kumasai in my life who is gorgeous and already showing that he will be one special dog.

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