Rep says Patrick Swayze has terminal cancer

March 5, 2008

The story was first reported by the National Enquirer, and quickly spread to other gossip sites.

For the past month, Patrick, 55, has been traveling to Stanford University's prestigious cancer center in Palo Alto for radical chemotherapy of pancreatic cancer, but his doctors no longer are optimistic that the treatments will be successful, the Enquirer reported.

The report said the cancer has spread to other organs and he has five weeks left to live.

Swayze's representative later confirmed those reports to the New York Post website, pagesix.com.

The 55-year-old star's publicist told the Post that he was diagnosed a month ago.

Sufferers of pancreatic cancer typically have a survival rate of less than 5 percent.

Swayze shot to fame starring as bad boy Johnny Castle in the hit 1987 movie Dirty Dancing. He also starred in Ghost and Point Break.

He recently wrapped filming on the A&E TV movie The Beast, in which he plays an FBI agent.