Surgical treatment of pancreatic cancer

Summary

About 28,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer are diagnosed yearly in the United States. The diagnosis is now made up to two months more quickly than just a few years ago, but this has had no impact on survival. In most institutions, 20-25% of patients have resectable lesions. The standard operation is still the Whipple pancreaticoduodenectomy, but many surgeons now use the pylorus preserving modification of that procedure. The operative mortality rate has fallen to <5%. The five-year survival rate after a resection for attempted cure is about 9%. Palliation requires cholecysto(docho)jejunostomy and gastrojejunostomy, which is often done prophylactically. The operative mortality rate in patients undergoing palliation is < 10% (recent UCLA experience), and the average survival is seven months.