Pancreatic cancer treatment is not just one thing — it can combine several approaches. Possible treatments include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy. Targeted therapy uses drugs that attack specific cancer cells, causing less harm to normal cells. Pancreatic cancer can be hard to treat because it is often found late. It also tends to spread quickly. Because of this, your care team may use more than one treatment. They decide the timing of each treatment, before or after surgery. It helps to ask your care team to explain your treatment plan. They can tell you why it is timed that way.