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Long-term survival from pancreatic cancer has failed to improve in the last four decades, says a new report. 

According to the report, presently only over three per cent of pancreatic cancer patients survive for at least five years, which is only a fraction more than two percent who survived that long in the early 1970s. 

According to the report, half of the patients survive at least twice that long across all cancers. But cases of pancreatic cancer is detected only when its too late for surgery. The majority of the patients die within a year due to the lack of effective test and treatments.

To make inroads into an area of research Cancer Research UK is planning to more than double its £6 million annual research spend on pancreas cancer within five year, the press release added. The disease has come into the spotlight across the charity's five institutes nationwide. 

"Pancreatic cancer has very few symptoms at first and I see far too many patients who, out of the blue, are told they may have just months or even weeks to live. We've been waiting too long for new drugs to treat the disease and there are very few options available for people with advanced forms of the disease. It's a situation that simply has to change and we can only do that by funding more high quality research and trials, to get treatments out of the lab and into patients as soon as possible," said Professor Andrew Biankin who is among the three quarters of scientists at Cancer Research UK's Beatson Institute at the University of Glasgow who are contributing to pancreatic cancer research, in the press release.

The report has been published by Cancer Research UK.