Apple founder Steve Jobs, 56, died Wednesday after a nearly eight-year struggle with complications stemming from a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor.
Although Apple characteristically offered little information about the circumstances surrounding Jobs' death, oncologists said the length of survival is typical of a patient with this type of disease.
"I've had patients I've treated with similar tumors who have lived for five to 10 years, even longer," Steven Libutti, MD, director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, told ڴŮ and ABC News.
As the news of Jobs' death spread Wednesday night -- much of it via devices of his own invention -- Apple stores across the country quickly became shrines as people left candles, flowers, and messages of condolence for the former CEO, whose image has stared out, contemplative and intense, from the homepage since the news was announced.
Jobs' impact on the healthcare community is reflected in numerous medical news headlines that play on its renowned slogan, "there's an app for that," from reading CT scans for appendicitis to interpreting echocardiography data remotely.
And as a testament to the impending importance of linking medical devices with smartphones, the FDA recently issued draft guidance on certain healthcare applications.
Jobs resigned as Apple CEO on Aug. 24, saying the day had come when he "could no longer meet [his] duties." At the time, clinicians interviewed by ڴŮ and ABC News speculated that it signaled a turn for the worse.
Jobs had been diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor in 2003, and had surgery to remove it in 2004.
He took a six-month medical leave in 2009 after learning the cancer had spread to his liver, as this type of tumor often does. That April, he had a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
Jobs announced his third leave of absence from the company on Jan. 17 of this year. Clinical experts said at the time that it was likely related to ongoing treatment.
A pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor is far different from the pancreatic cancer that killed Luciano Pavarotti, Patrick Swayze, and Randy Pausch. Neuroendocrine disease progresses more slowly and has longer survival, while the more common form of pancreatic cancer tends to kill quickly.
Oncologists contacted by ڴŮ said that treatment of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors has not changed much over the last 20 years.
"Progress in this disease has not been that great," Simon Lo, MD, director of pancreatic and biliary diseases at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told ڴŮ in an earlier interview.
Lo explained that clinicians still rely on a combination of chemotherapy, surgery, radiofrequency ablation, and chemoembolization to fight the disease and its metastases.
Recently, two small-molecule drugs, everolimus (Afinitor) and sunitinib (Sutent), have been approved for treating the disease, and some clinicians have been using bevacizumab (Avastin) off-label.
Jobs, who founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, left the company in 1985 after corporate power struggles. He subsequently headed Pixar Animation Studies, helping to shape it into a top production house responsible for pop culture classics like "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo."
Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and within a few short years made it one of the most influential technology companies in the world.
This article was developed in collaboration with ABC News. 