The crown jewelry of the surgeries for pancreatic cancer.

Chin J Cancer Res 2015;27(4):318-320 www.thecjcr.org We are very pleased to organize this issue of Chinese Journal of Cancer Research. Authors come from the most distinguished groups of pancreatic cancer surgeons and oncologists in China and in USA. The first two articles make overviews on the historic and contemporary progresses in surgical management of pancreatic cancer. Surgery for pancreatic cancer has been viewed as “the Crown Jewelry of the Surgeries” by many surgeons. Dr. Christopher Wolfgang and his group at the Johns Hopkins Hospital provide a historical overview on how the surgeons, from William Halsted to John Cameron, made history of modern surgery with their seminal contributions to pancreatic cancer management. Dr. Yupei Zhao and Dr. Taiping Zhang, and their group at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital depict the contemporary advancements and challenges of pancreatic surgeries. Each of the remaining articles is focused on one area of the advancements and contributed by the experts in the area. Pancreatic cancer still has a very poor outcome with a median survival of 2 years following curative surgical resection (1,2). In a case series with all stages of pancreatic cancer reviewed by Dr. Weiguo Cao and his group, the median survival is less than 1 year. One of attempts to improve the outcome is through radical surgery. Dr. Rufu Chen and Preface on Pancreatic Cancer