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Clinical Presentation and Symptoms in Pancreatic Cancer

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Textbook of Pancreatic Cancer

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Abstract

Early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is crucial in terms of prognosis but often challenging due to the unspecific symptoms. Painless jaundice caused by obstruction of the intrapancreatic portion of the common bile duct represents the classical textbook-symptom, but it is only occurring in about one third of all patients newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In contrast, vague epigastric pain with radiation to the back, maldigestion with steatorrhea, and new-onset diabetes especially in patients >65 years and when accompanied with previous weight loss are much more common findings, each with a frequency of well >30%. Other less frequent symptoms (≤10%) include lethargy and depression, venous thromboembolism, chronic or acute pancreatitis and a variety of rare tumour-associated paraneoplastic syndromes.

This chapter summarizes the considerations regarding differential diagnosis, association of frequent symptoms with risk of malignancy and prognosis and provides tools (statistical models and online calculators) to determine the individual patients’ risk according presence of symptoms and medical history. It also gives a short outlook on potential fields for further research in these aspects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Visceral, Transplant and Thoracic Surgery, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Florian Primavesi

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  1. Florian Primavesi
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Correspondence to Florian Primavesi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stavanger University Hospital, The University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Kjetil Søreide

  2. Chirurgie (VTT), Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria

    Stefan Stättner

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Primavesi, F. (2021). Clinical Presentation and Symptoms in Pancreatic Cancer. In: Søreide, K., Stättner, S. (eds) Textbook of Pancreatic Cancer. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53786-9_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53786-9_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-53785-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-53786-9

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