[Operative management in the treatment of pancreatic cancer]

The carcinoma of the pancreas is one of the 10 leading causes of death in the Western countries. Because of the resistance of pancreatic cancer against radiation and/or chemotherapy surgery is still the only possibility for cure. However, about 80 % of patients with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer are no more suitable for curative resection at the time of diagnosis because of local tumor infiltration or the presence of distant metastases. This is one reason for the unsatisfactory situation in terms of 5-year-survival rate of 3 to 24 %. In resectable tumors of the pancreas head the standard Whipple dominates still as the surgical method of choice. However, the pylorus preserving Whipple has been established as a surgical alternative to the classical Whipple. Other surgical procedures like extended or regional pancreatic resections, predominantly done by Japanese surgeons seem to fit the concept of radical resection. But compared to the classical Whipple or the pylorus preserving Whipple resection there is still no clear advantage in terms of long term survival. The prospective European multicenter study ESPAC-1 firstly demonstrated a survival advantage for adjuvant chemotherapy (5-FU and folic acid) but no gain for radiochemotherapy in the treatment of patients with R0 or R1 resected pancreatic cancer in terms of prolongation of mean survival (19.7 months vs. 14.0 months).