Facing one of the most formidable forms of cancer is difficult for anyone.

For 31-year-old Steph McGuire from Melbourne, the devastation was compounded as she lost her mother, father, and aunt to the same aggressive illness within a single year.

“It’s challenging to process; it all feels incredibly surreal,” McGuire shared.

“When my mom was diagnosed, it was an immense blow,” she recounted.

“Then, just months later, my dad received the same diagnosis, which was utterly heartbreaking.”

“His was at stage four, while my mom’s was stage three,” McGuire explained.

“Then my aunty got diagnosed a year or so later.

“You’re like, ‘Surely it’s not the same.’”

The mother to Harvey, four, and Hazel, 10 months, with husband Shaydan, is now worried about her own health.

Her mum, Vicki Jackson, who worked at a law firm, died aged 65 in July 2024, just over two years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Her early symptom was itching palms, a sign of bile in the bloodstream.

Her former CEO father, Steve, who was given the devastating news that he too had pancreatic cancer just months after his wife’s diagnosis, died a year after that, aged 66.

He had bowel issues, which flagged a problem, though he defied expectations to live for three years after chemo and a trial treatment.

In between losing her parents, Steph’s aunt and her mother’s sister, Valerie Boyd, was also diagnosed with and died from the disease.

She had diabetes, which can be an indicator.

Steph is now doing genetic testing to see if she’s likely to develop it, though testing done on her parents indicated it was not a genetic type.

An early diagnosis is crucial to surviving.

“It definitely freaks me out, once the symptoms are there, it’s really too late,” she says.

Advocates are also pushing for more money to help save lives.

Michelle Stewart, CEO of Pankind, said earlier detection and faster treatment – as well as funding for research – is needed.

“Survival has improved, but not fast enough and when several members of a family are diagnosed, it underscores the urgent need to understand familial and genetic risk,” Stewart said.

It aligns Australia with the global PRECEDE study, which aims to lift five-year survival rates from 13 to 50 per cent within a decade.

A spokesman for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing said the Australian Government supports health and medical research with $650 million annually from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and around $1 billion a year through the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Medical Research Endowment Account (MREA).

It has invested more than $13 million for research focused on pancreatic cancer in the past decade, he said.

“Between 2015 and 2024, the NHMRC has expended $41.5 million towards research relevant to pancreatic cancer.

“On 2 May 2024, Minister (Mark) Butler announced the MRFF Low Survival Cancers Mission (LSCM).

“It will provide $150 million over 10 years, from 2027-28, for research to improve care and health outcomes for people with low survival cancers, including pancreatic cancer.”

Symptoms include abdominal and back pain, jaundice, loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss, fatty stool, new onset or hard to manage diabetes and nausea.

Patients diagnosed have just a 13 per cent chance of surviving for five years, according to Pankind.

Only three out of 10 people diagnosed will be alive after a year.

World Pancreatic Cancer Day today, November 20.