EVOLUTION OF TREATMENT OF PANCREATIC HEAD CANCER

Pancreatic cancer is not a common disease: there are approximately 330000 cases a year worldwide. However, it is highly lethal, with nearly equal numbers of new cases and deaths. Surgery is the only potentially curative modality for patients with clinically localized and operable pancreatic cancer. Combined modality therapy compared to surgery alone has shown an advantage in terms of overall survival and should be considered for adjuvant treatment of resectable cancer patients. An improvement of surgical resectability and in overall survival has been shown for patients with unresectable tumor treated with neoadjuvant chemo-radiotherapy and surgical resection (median survival: 16–32 months).