[Diagnosis and therapy of pancreatic tumors]

Pancreatic tumours belong among oncological diseases with a very poor prognosis. The total five-year survival is 1-2%. Surgical resection with a curative intention increases the probability of five-year survival to 10-20%. However only some 10% tumours are diagnosed in the resectable stage. The reason is the low specificity of initial symptoms. Earlier diagnosis and improvement of survival could be promoted by improvement of imaging methods and endoscopic techniques. Improvement of therapeutic results in selected indications can be achieved by adjuvant treatment (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, possibly their combination). Treatment of inoperable stages of the disease is focused in particular on improvement of the quality of the patient's life. Its aim is specially to mitigate pain and reduce the consumption of analgesics, to ensure bile derivation or release the passage through the digestive tract. This can lead also to improvement of the patient's general condition. Despite advances in molecular biology of pancreatic cancer the results of systemic treatment remain unsatisfactory in advanced tumours. Nevertheless therapeutic nihilism must not prevail nowadays. It is necessary to use new findings in diagnosis and therapy. Patients with this disease should be included in clinical trials investigating optimal therapeutic procedures.