When the news broke that GRAMMY-winning R&B singer D’Angelo passed away at 51 after a private battle with pancreatic cancer, many fans were shocked. The singer had kept his diagnosis from the public, but his passing has drawn attention to a disease that remains one of the most aggressive and hardest to find early. His death comes just weeks before Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month in November, and World Pancreatic Cancer Day on November 20, a global initiative to bring to light a disease that is often called “the silent killer.”

“Pancreatic cancer usually hides until it is advanced,” says Cleo Ryals, PhD, a Harvard-trained cancer researcher, science communicator, and the founder of Evidence in Style. “It’s deep in the abdomen, so by the time symptoms show up, it’s often already spread.”

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