Pancreatic Cancer Risk Factors

A risk factor is anything that increases your chance of getting a disease such as cancer. Different cancers have different risk factors. Some risk factors, like smoking, can be changed. Others, like a person’s age or family history, can’t be changed.

In some cases, there might be a factor that may decrease your risk of developing cancer or has an unclear effect. That is not considered a risk factor, but you may see them noted clearly on this page as well. 

Having a risk factor, or even many, does not mean that you will get cancer. And some people who get cancer may have few or no known risk factors.

Here are some of the risk factors known to increase your risk for pancreatic cancer.