Resection of pancreatic cancer--surgical achievements

Looking back at the initially dismal record for pancreatic cancer surgery - Whipple himself felt that a 30-35% mortality was justifiable (!) - significant progress has been made.

The operative mortality has fallen below 5% and the serious complications of pancretic resections such as leaks and haemorrhage have been reduced to some 10% and we are better equipped to deal with these if they occur. The 5-year-survival of patients in whom pancreatic cancer was amenable to an R0-resection has risen to 30%. These are the surgical achievements using the standard Kausch-Whipple technique alone. There has been no improvement in these results, either by increasing radicality (regional pancreatectomy) or by reducing it (pylorus-preserving pancreatoduodenectomy). The same can be said of all other modalities of oncological treatment that have been tried so far: adjuvant radiochemotherapy, regional chemotherapy, hormonal or genetic manipulations.

This does not mean that we should reduce efforts at improving early detection of the disease and unravelling its complex molecular biology. On the contrary, the results of surgery alone in spite of all improvements seem to have reached a plateau that gives little cause for complacency.