BATON ROUGE — Around 66,000 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, according to the National Cancer Institute. Early signs of this deadly disease are easy to miss.

Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S., making timely detection of the disease even more crucial.

"Our best way of finding a disease at a curable stage is to find it early,” said Dr. Michael Wallace, a gastroenterologist with the Mayo Clinic.

Wallace says patients with a family history of pancreatic disease are at the greatest risk and should be screened annually with an MRI or an endoscopic ultrasound.

"If we see something abnormal, we can actually take a biopsy directly of it and that's a very, very safe procedure,” Wallace said.

There are new ways to detect the disease earlier.

"We now have very good ways, including some recent advances in artificial intelligence, enhancement of CT and MRI images that can allow us to tell which of these are likely to turn cancerous, and those individuals, we can actually remove the cyst, even before it becomes malignant and essentially prevent the disease,” Wallace said.

Lifestyle changes such as a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables and quitting smoking can also help prevent pancreatic cancer.