[Pancreatic tumors: recent developments]

Pancreatic cancer (PC) still typically has a poor prognosis. In addition to smoking, obesity and new-onset diabetes mellitus are considered to be significant risk factors. An endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) remains the mainstay for diagnosis and on which the majority of advances are based. In this sense, needle-based confocal laser endomicroscopy (nCLE) is gaining importance in the differential diagnosis of solid pancreatic lesions and studies comparing different needle types (cytology vs. histology) for EUS-guided puncture. Intravenous contrast (IC-EUS) and elastography are additional tools associated with EUS that can assist in diagnosing PC. Regarding prognostic factors, the importance of the role of mesenteric-portal vein resection was emphasized, given the limited advances in treatment, as in previous years. Regarding cystic tumors, work focuses on validating the new international guidelines from Fukuoka 2012 (revised Sendai criteria) and on determining predictors of cystic lesion malignancy, mainly of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN). From a therapeutic point of view, there are theories regarding the usefulness of alcohol and the gemcitabine-paclitaxel combination in the ablation of small mucinous cystic lesions through EUS-injection.