[Tumor of the pancreas. Support treatment]

Carcinoma of the pancreas has a poor prognosis with a short survival time. Despite diagnostic advances, diagnosis is often delayed because early symptoms are frequently vague and non-specific. Symptomatic treatment is the only possibility in the large majority of patients with pancreatic cancer since curative surgical excision of the tumor is only possible in few cases. Symptoms managed, in the aim to improve the quality of life, include weight loss and anorexia, abdominal pain, jaundice secondary to biliary compression and digestives consequences of pancreatic surgery. Anorexia is a frequent complaint in patients with pancreatic cancer, and contributes to decreased caloric intake, weight loss and malnutrition. Patients who are unable to eat, due to obstruction or dysfunctional gastrointestinal tract, may benefit from enteral or parenteral nutrition. Patients whose main reason to not obtain adequate food intake is anorexia may benefit from recently developed pharmacologic strategies. Megestrol acetate often produce an improvement in appetite and weight gain in patients with advanced cancer. Jaundice can be treated by surgical biliary drainage or better still by palliative biliary endoprosthesis. Percutaneous transhepatic or endocopic biliary drainage are now well established methods for decompressing malignant biliary obstruction. Pain occurs in 80-85% of patients with advanced disease. Abdominal pain should be treated by oral non-narcotic analgesics, or, if necessary, potent narcotic analgesics, and sometimes by percutaneous block of the celiac ganglion, splancnicectomy or abdominal radiotherapy. Celiac plexus block with alcohol is the most common and well described therapy for the specific pain from carcinoma of the pancreas. Digestive consequences of pancreatic surgery also require symptomatic treatment.