Pancreas Cancer: A Plea for Multidisciplinary Care

The American Cancer Society reported the trends in five-year survival for pancreas cancer (predominately pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma) in 2010. For the cohorts of patients 1975-1977, 19841986, and 1999-2005 the five-year survival rates are a dismal three percent, three percent, and six percent respectively. This is in stark contrast to overall cancer survivals from all sites for the same time intervals of 50 percent, 54 percent, and 68 percent [1]. This is at a time when the incidence of pancreatic cancer across the United States has not decreased and, in fact, may have increased [2]. The traditional curative treatment for pancreatic cancer has been resectional surgery. In many patients this has necessitated a radical pancreaticoduodenectomy, or the Kausch – Whipple procedure, with its attendant morbidity and mortality. Still, even with radical surgery the extended survival has not far exceeded 20 percent. Yet treatment of pancreas cancer in many minds remains principally a surgical event.