For months, Mona Thind, 52, was told her recurring pain and upset stomach were likely the result of constipation or a poor diet. It took a gastrointestinal scan taken during a Byron Bay holiday in late 2024 — prompted by a father's instinct — to uncover the truth: she had pancreatic cancer.
Mona's story is a striking illustration of one of the most urgent problems facing patients with the disease. Its early symptoms are so vague and easily dismissed that by the time many people receive a correct diagnosis, the cancer has already progressed to a far more dangerous stage.
A father's gut feeling, a life-changing scan
Mona had known something was wrong for some time before her diagnosis. Doctors had repeatedly attributed her symptoms — pain around her ribs and stomach discomfort — to manageable lifestyle factors. As she was heading off on a holiday to northern New South Wales, her father stopped her with a quiet but firm concern.
"As I was walking out of his house, he said to me, 'My heart tells me we should do a scan … I feel it in my gut'," Mona recalled. She laughed it off at the time, assuming it was the worry of an overprotective parent.
But during an upper gastrointestinal scan in Byron Bay, she could tell from the expression on the sonographer's face that something serious had been found. "I saw the look on her face," she said. "I came home, and everything happened."
What followed was an arduous 15-month treatment journey: six rounds of chemotherapy and major surgery. Through it all, Mona said she approached her diagnosis with a pragmatic resolve. "When I was first diagnosed, I didn't cry. I wasn't sad every day; I just went, this is what it is."
The day she was told she had beaten the cancer, however, was the moment she finally broke down. Her father, who had promised to attend every chemotherapy session, had died on the day of her final treatment. "He was there for every single treatment," she said. "He was my pillar of strength."
Why pancreatic cancer is so hard to catch early
Pancreatic cancer is the eighth most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, with the Cancer Council estimating that one in 70 Australians will be diagnosed with the disease by the age of 85. It develops when malignant cells form in the pancreas — and it is considered among the most complex and understudied cancers in the country.
Dr Amelia Parker, a senior researcher at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research's Cox Lab, says the survival figures are sobering. Fewer than 13 per cent of patients survive beyond five years from diagnosis — a statistic she attributes largely to the difficulty of catching the disease early.
"A lot of the symptoms associated with early-stage pancreatic cancer are largely vague or not readily diagnosed," Dr Parker said. "This means that patients often aren't seeking medical help until the cancer is much more advanced."
As with other cancers, once pancreatic cancer spreads beyond its original site, treatment becomes significantly harder and survival rates fall sharply.
Researchers call for greater investment in pancreatic cancer research
Dr Parker says her team is making meaningful progress in understanding the disease and developing more effective detection methods — but insists that sustained funding is essential to translate that work into real-world outcomes for patients.
"There has been less investment in research funding historically, and that's really hampered our efforts to both understand the disease and use that understanding to develop new and better treatments," she said.
She described the funding landscape for cancer research as "highly competitive", warning that promising work risks going unsupported. "There's more research out there that would make a difference," she said.
The Australian Cancer Research Foundation has signalled its intention to help address this funding gap, with its leadership expressing hope that greater investment can shift the trajectory for patients facing this difficult diagnosis.
For Mona, whose cancer was caught almost by accident during a family holiday, the stakes of that research mission are deeply personal — and the cost of delayed detection, painfully real.
