Improvement of surgical results for pancreatic cancer.

Abstract

Surgery is the only potential hope of cure for patients with pancreatic cancer. Advantageous tumour characteristics and complete tumour resection are the factors most relevant for a positive prognosis, so detection of premalignant or early invasive lesions, combined with safe and oncologically adequate surgery, is an important goal. The experience and volume of both the individual surgeon and hospital are of paramount importance to achieve low morbidity and adequate management of complications. Most pancreatic cancers are locally advanced or metastatic when diagnosed and need multimodal therapy. With increasing evidence on surgical and perioperative aspects of pancreatic cancer therapy, short-term and long-term outcomes of resectable and borderline resectable pancreatic cancer are improving.