'Rates of pancreatic cancer have soared by up to 200 per cent in women under the age of 25 since the 1990s.

Overall, incidences of the disease — which has a five-year survival rate of just 5 per cent — have increased by around 17 per cent over the same time-span, with soaring obesity rates suspected to be behind the trend.

Yet oncologists cannot explain the particular surge in young women, with no such spike noted in men of the same age.'