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Monday Top Story

Him was i wanted to thank him for showing me how to be a better man at work and even more importantly a better man with my family and my wife.

He was -- he was really that great.

>> jon: final episode that trebek recorded will be on christmas this year.

>> leah: we will look at trebek's life and legacy and learn more about the pancreatic cancer and latest research to find a cure.

Trebek's death coming after a year and a half and diagnosed stage four pancreatic cancer but he was not the only one in the spotlight taken by the deadly diagnosis.

Earlier this year supreme court justice ruth beta ginsburg died.

>> jon: brooke schwieters sat down with dr. david goer this morning trying to lay out the facts.

We know it takes people and takes people quickly.

>> brooke: it certainly does.

We are sitting down with dr. guyer this morning and putting it in the spotlight with the recent passing of alex trebek.

Dr. guyer, i think we have him here, what makes it so deadly.

>> the problem with pancreatic cancer is most people don't have symptoms until it spreads to other organs like their liver, so they don't realize they have it.

By the time they go to the doctor and diagnosis of pancreatic cancer has been made, again, it is spread to the liver.

Now it is stage four and it is very hard to cure at that point.

>> brooke: you know, with that then, are there any means of early detection or prevention when it comes to this disease?

>> we don't know about prevention.

Tobacco smoking is thought to be main risk and obesity and two things to control but there are genetic variations and familial or hereditary things that could set you up for it.

As far as prevention goes, what i would emphasize though is early symptoms which can be caused by any type of abdominal thing, things like abdominal pain, loss of appetite, unintended weight gain, jaundice where the whites of eyes turn yellow, if you have any of those see your doctor right away.

>> brooke: you mentioned successability, obesity, smoking, are some more susceptible than others?

Any type of factors with diagnosis with certain people?

>> if you have a family member with pancreatic cancer, there are genetic sequences that make it higher risk and hard to check out and hard to do necessarily about it and have the genetic variation and potentially might get it but might be more attuned to regular checks and tests to make sure you catch it early.

This disease is very curable if you catch it early.

The problem is we almost never do because it has gotten to other organs and at that point it is almost too late.

>> putting spotlight obviously on something very important, our health, in light of a tragic situation.

Thanks for joining us.

>> thank you.

>> jon: number of coronavirus cases 50 million.

Almost 10