Steve Jobs, 56, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc., died last Wednesday after a long battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

Jobs battled multiple health problems beginning in 2004, which was the same year he was diagnosed with the cancer. The diagnosis was made when he went under the surgeon's knife to remove a tumor in his pancreas. Initially, the illness was thought to be treatable. Unfortunately, the cancer spread beyond his pancreas, and, in 2009, Jobs took another leave of absence and underwent a liver transplant.

“The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months,” Jobs said during a commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005.

According to the American Cancer Society, about 34,290 Americans -- 17,500 men and 16,790 women -- died of pancreatic cancer in 2008, making it the fourth-deadliest form of cancer in the country.

And Jobs isn't the only celebrity to succumb to pancreatic cancer.

Click here to begin the slide show to find out who else died of pancreatic cancer.


Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer died of pancreatic cancer on October 5, 2011 at age 56. Jobs was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. Reuters
Donna Reed
Donna Reed is an American film and television actress who has appeared in more than 40 films died on January 14, 1986, at age 64. The actress died of pancreatic cancer three months after she was diagnosed. www.wikipedia.org/Connormah
Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie, an American jazz trumpet player died on Jan.6, 1993 due to pancreatic cancer at the age of 75. dizzygillespie.org/
Patrick Swayze
Patrick Swayze, an American actor dancer and singer-songwriter was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January 2008, and died on Sept. 14, 2009 at age 57. Swayze's died at the age of 57 (the same age as his father died), 20 months after being diagnosed. By the time he was diagnosed the cancer had spread to his liver, he went through intense treatment but no surgery. Reuters
Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti, the famous Italian opera singer and one of the one of ‘The Three Tenors’ died of pancreatic cancer on September 6, 2007 at the age of 71. He was diagnosed with cancer in July 2006. Reuters
Randy Pausch
Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch or known as Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science human-computer interaction at Carnegie-Mellon University. He died of pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008, two years after he was diagnosed. en.wikipedia.org/Randy Pausch
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