[Informed consent for patients with pancreatic cancer]

Pancreatic cancer is an intractable malignancy with the poorest prognosis among digestive tract cancers. It is important when we obtain informed consent (IC) from patients with pancreatic cancer and their families to convey sufficiently that pancreatic cancer is intractable and provide support to help patients maintain a positive attitude toward treatment. Although the efficacy of chemo (radiation) therapy in pancreatic cancer is still unclear, the progress of various clinical trials on postoperative adjuvant therapy centered on gemcitabine hydrochloride, and chemo (radiation) therapy for unresectable tumors has raised expectations in recent years. To enable each individual patient to select the optimal treatment based on his or her personal outlook on life, it is important to obtain IC in good faith through the accurate diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and the use of the latest treatment information.