Pancreatic cancer. Influence of endoscopic ultrasonography on management and outcomes

The manner in which endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) influences management of pancreatic cancer is reviewed in this article. The greatest impact of EUS is on the clinical management of small, potentially resectable tumors. Changes in management may not influence clinical outcome unless treatment is effective. EUS, however, provides an important link between the T.M. staging method and multimodal selective treatment concepts. The accurate T.M. staging of EUS will allow further advances in treatment to be applied selectively. Rational application of multimodal selective treatment concepts is discussed. With rational application of effective treatment, clinical outcome of patients with pancreatic cancer will improve.