[Pancreatic cancer]

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of death for neoplasm in western countries. Surgery still remains the treatment of choice although almost 80% of patients are not resectable at diagnosis because of liver metastases and the 5-year overall survival of patients treated with surgery is only (20%). During the last two decades we have witnessed an overall improvement in terms of survival, mostly due to the advances in therapy and strategies for a more accurate patient selection for surgery. Specific preoperative criteria, mostly linked to the biological features of the tumour, have been proposed to better identify those patients who will benefit from surgical resection, such as duration of symptoms and serum level of CA19-9 in resectable disease. Oncological therapy plays a central role in the management of pancreatic cancer. In patients undergone surgical resection, adjuvant therapy might increase the overall survival and reduce the rate of early relapse. Patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer can be treated with neoadjuvant treatment. Chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy are usually used with the aim to downstage the disease but whether one specific strategy or drug is the treatment of choice is still under debate.